It has been more than 30 days and the citizen activists protesting against the 23-storeyed robotic parking tower outside Matunga Central railway station are still awaiting a response to their RTIs. The citizens have filed RTIs seeking the number of existing parking spaces near Matunga Central Railway Station and a copy of the NOC from the Mumbai Fire Brigade.
Activist Chetan Trivedi, who has filed the RTIs said, “I have physically visited the Building Proposal (BP) department and Mumbai Fire Brigade’s office (MFB) and I am told the reply to my RTIs is in process. BMC is unable to give the citizens any clear answer and is passing the buck from one department to another. If the MFB has given a NOC for the project, why it is failing to provide a copy?”
Despite repeated attempts, Deputy Chief Fire Officer Y R Jadhav, under whose jurisdiction the Matunga project falls could not be reached for comment. The MFB had earlier said that as the plot where the project is planned does not have a CS number, the copy of the Fire NOC is not available in the system.
Notably, the BMC gave the work order to the contractor for the Matunga parking tower project in 2023, before the required NOCs, including the Railways which was obtained in 2024. The BMC also awarded the contract through an offline system, which has further irked the citizen activists. “It is Rs 126 crore project, made out of taxpayers’ money. Why was the contract awarded offline- without suggestions/objections obtained from the citizens,” trustee of Petition Group, G R Vora said.
Meanwhile, the Petitions Group has also written to the local MLA BJP’s Kalidas Kolamkar and local MP- Shiv Sena UBT’s Anil Desai to scrap the project. “Kolamkar has been telling us to suggest another plot for the parking tower project,” Vora said.
As per the sources, the BMC Chief Engineer (Roads and Traffic) has invited the Matunga citizen activists to hold another discussion over the project and resolve their queries on January 2. In their last meeting, the BMC failed to provide documents to the citizens on-record regarding the project, which are mandatory to be in the public domain.
