Residents of the Kanakia Paris Cooperative Housing Society, a Bandra East high-rise, have expressed opposition to the development of an HBT Aapla Dawakhana clinic outside the society’s front gate. As workmen hired by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) contractor arrived on Wednesday to build the clinic, citizens staged a peaceful protest, halting work and eventually filing a police complaint at the Kherwadi police station.
Mihir Kamdar, a resident, stated that the reason roughly 2000 residents of 450 flats are opposed to the public clinic outside their gate is that the road, which leads to a dead end, is being extended to connect two metro stations, and adding a clinic to the mix would produce a traffic snarl. “There will be a large number of families and children visiting the clinic, resulting in more automobiles parking here. “We are already experiencing traffic jams at the gate,” Kamdar remarked.
On October 14, three weeks after the clinic’s construction began, the residents sent a complaint letter to the H East ward office and municipal commissioner, expressing their worries, and followed up with the ward’s assistant commissioner, Swapnaja Kshirsagar, according to the secretary. “The official promised to look into the alternative area we proposed. As a result, when the contractor appeared at our gate, we were stunned,” he said.
Meanwhile, the neighbourhood urgently requires an Aapla Dawakhana. A doctor at the single BMC-run dispensary in Bharat Nagar, a nearby slum, stated, “On a good day, I see 120 to 150 patients.” This figure frequently exceeds 200. There is a large slum population here from Dyaneshwar Nagar and Maharashtra Nagar. This is the only clinic that caters to everyone.”
Source: Hindustan Times
