The metro and monorail promise to redefine your travelling experience. And the experience may well start before you enter a station.
BEST committee willing it would soon be a reality
The metro and monorail promise to redefine your travelling experience. And the experience may well start before you enter a station and last even after you leave it.
With a little help from the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), you may soon see yourself traipsing through a swanky mall instead of a lane crowded with peddlers, and watching a movie in a multiplex, before you hop on to the monorail or the underground metro.
In fact, the monorail stops, which will be elevated, will take commuters directly to the malls or multiplexes.
BEST has put forward a proposal to join hands with the MMRDA — the agency implementing monorail and metro — to provide an efficient, affordable and a reliable public mass transport system.
It has also sought an FSI of four for its attempt to cash in on the realty boom by commercially exploiting vacant spaces in its depots, which are located at prime spots.
MMRDA sources said the proposal, pending before the BEST committee, made sense.
There was a huge potential for transport interchanges at these depots as the monorail and the metro corridors would run parallel to the existing BEST bus routes, they said. Consequently, if the depots are commercially exploited, metro and monorail commuters would also benefit.
“We have huge spaces at our various depots and they lie vacant throughout the day,” Uttam Khobragade, BEST general manager, said. “If these spaces are utilised, not only will it mean more revenue for us, it will also result in better amenities for commuters,” Khobragade said.
There is great potential to make use of large spaces at several (BEST depot) locations for metro/monorail. These spaces could also be used for constructing car parking facilities, the proposal states. “It would also help generate considerable resources,” it says.
MMRDA said it would extend all its support to the BEST proposal “if it is in the interest of the people”.
“If the project is in wider interest of Mumbaikars, all help would be extended,” said
Dilip Kawathkar, MMRDA spokesperson.
Daily commuters are excited at the prospect of shopping and having fun even as they travel. “It is a good idea,” Khyati Shah, a businesswoman, said.
Since the depots are situated at prominent areas, BEST would not find it difficult to attract reputed builders for its plans, property consultants said.
“This practice is prevalent in places like New York, London,” said Sunil Bajaj, a real estate consultant.
k_shweta@dnaindia.nett_chittaranjan@dnaindia.net 
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