Local officials suggest changes to BMC plan for splitting L ward

MUMBAI: While the BMC is going ahead with its plan to split large wards such as P-North and K-East, the proposal to split the BMC L ward may change, as local and zonal BMC officials have come up with a proposal to remove three corporator wards from the L ward and two wards from M-East ward and merge it with the M-West ward, increasing the number of corporator wards of M-West ward from seven to 12 wards.
Local BMC officials claim that the general administration department will have to take a call after the new proposal is put before them.
Meanwhile, a BMC market building has been identified in Poonam Nagar in Jogeshwari for setting up of the new ward office for K-North ward on a temporary basis. The K-East ward is being split into K-South and K-North wards. The L ward is spread over 15.6 sq km and has a population of about 9 lakh.
The earlier proposal was to split this ward into L-South and L-North. Of the 16 existing corporator wards, nine were to be put in L-North and seven were to be accommodated in L-South.
"The new proposal will ensure that the BMC will not have to go through the whole process of creating a new establishment and infrastructure for the ward and also avoid additional expenditure for the same. What we intend to do here is just reorganise the wards by removing some of the corporator wards or beats and merge them with another ward. In this case, the M-West ward currently has only seven corporator wards, while the M-East has about 15 corporator wards. By reorganising them, we will solve a lot of problems and also rationalise the ward jurisdiction. This has also been done keeping in mind the geographical convenience too," said an official.
Meanwhile, as part of the plan to split the K-East ward into K-North and K-South wards, a new ward office will be set up in the BMC markets building at Poonam Nagar, Jogeshwari.
Three floors in the building will be used to house the new ward office, sources claimed.