Mumbai civic body admits to mistakes in revised DP

The civic body has termed them ‘drafting errors’ and decided to correct them and present the draft DP directly the planning committee to be formed to hear suggestions and objections.

MUMBAI: Just a few days before the deadline for citizens to send suggestions/objections to the revised draft Development Plan (DP) 2034, the BMC on Tuesday admitted there were numerous errors — pointing at errors, citizens and activists have been demanding extended extension of the deadline to study the DP further closely.

However, the civic body has termed them 'drafting errors' and decided to correct them and present the draft DP directly the planning committee to be formed to hear suggestions and objections.

An official from BMC's DP department said, "At some places, buffer zones have not been marked along nullahs and rivers. Also there's spillover in the marking of different zones like industrial zones at some places [zones shown larger or smaller]. They are all being corrected now. The other errors include inaccuracies in the width of roads and and their names being missed out. We have suo motu decided to make these corrections and present them before the planning committee." The planning committee would consist of four urban planning experts and three standing committee members.

The BMC will also present before the committee a list of drafting errors in the plan it is finding.

DP department officials said they were cartographic issues and they are yet to know the exact number of errors.

Activist Shyama Kulkarni of AGNI Trustee said it's too late in the day for the civic body to undertake such a corrections. "Are they trying to hoodwink citizens by correcting the errors and calling them drafting errors? On one hand they are not giving extension for citizens to send suggestions/objections, but on the other they themselves are correcting errors," said Kulkarni.

Advocate Godfrey Pimenta of the NGO Watchdog Foundation said, "If the BMC itself is correcting the plan then it should give Mumbaikars more time to give suggestions/objections."

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