The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday, March 16, announced its long-pending decision to keep the city’s parks and gardens open for longer hours.
This development came after lot of requests from citizens regarding timings flexibility, considering their working hours and travel patterns.
Moreover, this decision was taken owing to increase in the number of health conscious citizens especially after COVID-19-induced pandemic in parks, grounds, recreation grounds, etc.
Therefore, now gardens will be open from 5 am to 10 pm. On Weekdays, there will be a break from 1 pm to 3 pm; however, on holidays and weekends, there won’t be any break.
At present, municipal parks and grounds were kept open only from 6 am to 12 noon and from 3 pm to 9 pm. Meanwhile, it is pertinent to note that the civic body had planned to keep the grounds open round the clock in 2018 but it was withdrawn due to security reasons.
Besides, if there are any changes in the opening hours of a particular park/ground/recreational ground, the assistant commissioner concerned may make it with the approval of the additional municipal commissioner concerned for justifiable reasons. Boards showing the change in opening hours will be placed on the facades of the parks, said an official.
There are a total of 229 gardens, 432 recreation grounds, 318 playgrounds and 26 parks in the metropolis.
For those unversed, the civic body was drafting a policy on the upkeep of gardens and playgrounds in the city, and got nearly 300 suggestions from citizens in 2019.
The BMC’s gardens department had put out post on Facebook to declare the timings of gardens from 6 am till 10 pm. But the decision was never implemented.
After the pandemic reduced, when the gardens reopened, the BMC increased the opening hours, from the earlier 6 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 8 pm.