Tanishka Sodhi
These days, barricades and bulldozers obscure the view of Mumbaiâs Arabian Sea coastline. Signboards that read âconnecting people and placesâ watch over construction crews that have made good use of the pandemic lockdown to ramp up work on the ambitious Coastal Road project.
The 29-km road will link Marine Drive in the south to Kandivali in the north. The anticipated benefit? Reduction in travel time by about 70 percent in the second most
congested city in the world. Is the intended benefit worth the estimated cost in public resources, livelihoods, and environmental damage?
The project
comprises an eight-lane partly elevated road, a 2.31-km main bridge, a 13-km interchange bridge, a sea wall, and Indiaâs first undersea tunnel. About 68,000 vehicles are
Dismayed Citizens, Despondent Fisherfolk Watch as Mumbaiâs Coastal Road Comes Up Rapidly
The entire project has been marked by opacity and lack of public consultation, say activists.
An artist s rendition of the construction of the Mumbai coastal road. Art: Parag Kashinath Tandel
Urban25/Jan/2021
Mumbai: Dredgers, cranes, pile drivers, sand and other construction equipment are all working round the clock and speedily filling up the sea to create new land. A small knot of men watch, helplessly â they are Kolis, a millennia-old community that has fished in the waters around Mumbaiâs coastline and generations later, still continues to do so.