Mumbai: Here’s a piece of bad news for several Mumbaikars seeking better east-west connectivity in the city. After facing numerous hurdles for six long years, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) still faces a situation of stalemate for its ambitious Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR) project.
The World Bank (WB) sponsored project, which is expected to ease traffic woes while traveling between the western and eastern suburbs, is stuck as the MMRDA is yet to acquire land required for its completion.
Even World Bank officials, on their recent trip to reviewMumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), had expressed concerns over delay in the SCLR project.
During their meeting, the WB officials had specifically brought up discussions aboutSCLR and had snubbed MMRDA officials over the delay.
Following the meeting with WB, the MMRDA seems to have woken up and requested the state government to issue a notification for the land acquisition. The state government on its part, just a couple of days back, issued a notification for acquiring the two plots at Kurla, which have delayed the project. The notification has given a month’s time for suggestions and objections to be made for the acquisition process.
According to a press statement issued by MMRDA, the two plots in Kurla measuring a total of 5,100 square metres (CTS No.408A measuring 347.5 square metres and CTS No.450/1 to 40 measuring 4,789 square metres) are to be acquired by the authority for construction of SCLR.
When questioned about why the MMRDA has not acquired the plots in the last six years, the authority spokesperson Dilip Kawathkar said a lot of efforts were made to persuade the occupants of the plots to vacate them for building the SCLR. “We tried our best to go ahead through talks with the occupants.
However, since the deadlock could not be resolved, we had to request the state government to issue a notification through its urban development department (UDD) for acquisition,” said Kawathkar. “The acquisition is proposed in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 32 of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority Act, 1974 (Mah.IV of 1975).”
However, the acquisition process is expected to be tough and long-drawn as one of the two plots (CTS No.450/1 to 40) has many occupants on it. Moreover, after acquiring the plots, if any of the occupants move court, the project may end up getting further delayed.
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