"There is no question of acquiring even one inch of (Doongerwadi) land” for the relocation of the reservoir under the Sir Pherozeshah Mehta (P. M.) Gardens on Malabar Hill, stated Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the Maharashtra minister of skills, employment, entrepreneurship and innovation to the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees in a letter dated October 4, 2023. "An issue has been raised recently regarding reconstruction of the dilapidated Malabar Hill Reservoir below the Hanging Gardens,” the minister noted. "A suggestion was put up that the reservoir should be relocated on the lands of the Doongerwadi. The suggestion was immediately rejected. Doongerwadi is a dedicated location for over the last 300 years and it houses the ‘Towers of Silence’ which is the last resting place for the deceased Parsi, Irani Zoroastrians.”
Lodha’s letter to the BPP was an outcome of a meeting with him on October 4 at the BPP’s 209, Dr Dadabhai Naoroji Road office. A BPP communiqué dated October 5 noted: "We discussed amongst other things our serious concern and need to protect our Doongerwadi lands as there were some rumors that demands were being made from certain vested lobbies to approach Government for shifting the Malabar Hill reservoir to our Doongerwadi lands.”
Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees and their supporters:
Armaity Tirandaz with Mangal Prabhat Lodha (4th and 5th from l)
"Lodha has not only dispelled our doubts but has furthermore sent out a reassuring message through his letter addressed to all the members of our Parsi, Irani Zoroastrian community,” stated the notice issued by BPP trustees Armaity Tirandaz (chairwoman), Viraf Mehta, Xerxes Dastur, Anahita Desai, Maharukh Noble, Adil Malia and Hoshang Jal.
Newspaper reports in the first week of October stated that the municipal corporation was looking to renovate the 140-year-old reservoir under the Sir P. M. Gardens, commonly known as Hanging Gardens, resulting in their closure for seven years. There has been public reaction against the felling of 189 trees and transplantation of the 200 trees that would need to make way for the project. In a letter dated September 27, Lodha wrote to the Bombay Municipal Corporation chief Iqbal Singh Chahal that the ongoing work for the new reservoir be suspended and the notices on the trees be removed. Relocation of the reservoir to another site was also being considered.
"Some environmental groups had raised the issue that one possible relocation site could be Doongerwadi,” Malia told Parsiana on October 5. Resident groups have suggested that alternative locations for the reservoir could be the space made available by the construction of the Coastal Road or the Mahalaxmi race course.