MUMBAI: A residents’ group has urged the BMC to repossess a portion of K C Marg in Bandra Reclamation—allegedly illegally occupied by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC)—before it completes ongoing sewerage and cement concrete road works. The residents say that failing to do so could permanently compromise the road’s planned width.
In its June 30 representation, the Bandra Reclamation Area Volunteers Organisation (BRAVO) pointed out that the road was unable to be developed as envisaged in the original layout plan on account of MSRDC establishing its office on a substantial portion of it and not vacating despite repeated requests over the years. “It is truly astounding that not hawkers, not slums, but a government organisation has illegally occupied a public road,” the trust said in its representation.
According to BRAVO, the original layout prepared by the then Bombay Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) in 1970 envisaged K C Marg as a 36.6-metre- wide road stretching from the Lal Mati slum area in the east to the BMC pumping station in the west. When MHADA developed seven high-income group residential buildings in the area between 1986 and 1988, it laid only about 18.3 metres of the proposed road width. The BMC subsequently constructed the adjoining footpath and surface drain, but the remaining portion, the trust said, continues to be occupied by MSRDC.
