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Versova-Kandivali coastal road stretch BMC’s food for thought

Environmental hurdles, MSRDC’s plan to stretch sea link up to Virar make agency think twice

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Coastal Road and Versova Virar sea-link plans stare at each-other
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After several turns and modifications, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is ready to execute one part of the ambitious Coastal Road. However, there is still uncertainty over the remaining portion — the north part of the original coastal road project that was to run from Versova to Kandivali. Civic body officials said that they are on wait and watch mode about this 9.32-km stretch.

The project was envisaged in 2012 and conceptualised by former municipal commissioner Subodh Kumar. The initial plan of the Coastal Road (CR) was from Manora Niwas in Nariman Point up to Kandivali. Its lenght was 35.6 km and approximate cost was Rs 10,000 crore. The road would move along Marine Drive and lead into a single tunnel that would go under Malabar Hill and exit on the other side of Priyadarshini Park. There were 18 entry and exit points along the route and the committee said road will take 5 years to complete. 

But when BMC started working on it in 2013 and did a feasibility study, it realised that getting permissions for environment clearance will be a task. The state government requested the Environment Ministry to relax the norms. The state government tried for a clearance in 2015 too. While the Centre did give some clearance, it denied reclamation of land of nearly 33 hectares on western suburbs.

This led BMC to decide on making the CR in parts. So, in 2016, BMC started work on the 9.8-km south stretch of the planned road, which as per final proposal now runs from Princess Street to the Worli-end of Bandra-Worli Sea Link. As BMC planned this, the state government approved the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) plan to build a 9.8-km Bandra-Versova sea link that would connect with Bandra-Worli Sea Link. This in turn led the BMC to further trim its ambitious project to only Versova to Kandivali. However, now BMC officers are in two minds to whether even go ahead with that.

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