Sena leader and Standing Committee Chairman Yashwant Jadhav in his budget speech for 2022-23 on Friday said that a plot having an area of 286.27 sq meters has been identified in Bandra for construction of ‘Dabbewala Bhavan’.(File) AHEAD OF polls of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Shiv Sena, which controls the Corporation has reiterated its promise to build a ‘Dabbewala Bhavan’ in Bandra.
Last year, citing land scarcity as a reason, the civic administration had turned down the plan of construction of ‘Dabbewala Bhavan’ to honour Mumbai’s famous dabbawalas.
The plan was first announced by Sena in its 2017 manifesto in the run-up to the BMC elections.
Sena leader and Standing Committee Chairman Yashwant Jadhav in his budget speech for 2022-23 on Friday said that a plot having an area of 286.27 sq meters has been identified in Bandra for construction of ‘Dabbewala Bhavan’. Jadhav was speaking in the Standing Committee meeting.
“We had promised to set up ‘Dabbewala Bhavan’ to honour Mumbai’s popular dabbawalas, who deliver lakhs of tiffins daily in the city. Following this, we have taken a positive step and land has been made available in Bandra for construction of the Bhavan,” said Jadhav.
In the budget estimate of 2021-22, Municipal Commissioner I S Chahal had made a provision of Rs 1 crore for the construction of the Bhavan. However, in the revised estimate of the 2021-22 budget, the provision was cancelled since the civic administration had said that there is no space available.
Now, after Sena came forward to push the project and identified the land, the budget estimate of 2022-22 that was presented on February 3 has allocated Rs 1 crore for the project.
Known for their outstanding management skill for delivering home-cooked meals to about two lakh employees in the city every day, the dabbawalas have garnered worldwide praise. The tradition of dabbawalas has been in existence since 1870.
The proposal was first moved by Shiv Sena corporator Kishori Pednekar in March 2019, who is now the mayor.
Pednekar’s notice of motion of setting up a Dabbawala Bhavan in Mumbai was approved in a general body meeting by the then Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar.
The civic body while turning her proposal down had said that currently, no land is available with the Estate Department and the Development Plan (DP) 2034 does not have any reservation marked for the ‘Dabbewala Bhavan’.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
