Decongesting Mumbai, so far a mission impossible

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Mumbai is the world’s 2nd most congested city, making it lose its sheen as India’s financial capital. The state government’s plans to expand it have gone nowhere.

Mumbai: Urban congestion and Mumbai have long been synonyms. Only one city in the world – Dhaka – has a greater population density than the 31,700 people per sq km of India’s commercial capital, according to the World Economic Forum.

And considering Mumbai is a chain of islands converted into a single landmass, surrounded by the sea on three sides, there’s not much scope for expansion either.

A string of state governments — including Devendra Fadnavis’s BJP-led administration and his predecessor Prithviraj Chavan’s Congress-NCP regime — have shown the intent to decongest Mumbai by creating new cities and planned clusters on the mainland, and by better integrating Mumbai with the larger Mumbai metropolitan area.

However, despite a string of consultancy studies, blueprints, and proposals over the past decade, the megapolis remains a congested mess.

The need for integration

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) is spread over 4,355 sq km, and its population has been growing at a higher rate than Mumbai’s — according to the 2011 Census, the respective figures were 12.22 per cent and 3.87 per cent.

And yet, Mumbai itself takes most of the load of the region, accounting for more than 65 per cent of MMR’s population and 61.5 per cent of the total jobs available, burdening its inadequate infrastructure.

In contrast, the National Capital Territory of Delhi accounts for 36 per cent of the population of Delhi’s larger urban agglomeration — the National Capital Region — with the population more evenly spread out than in MMR.

Thanks to this congestion, the city is losing sheen as India’s business capital, with overcrowding and lack of proper networks and infrastructure within MMR pushing up commercial and residential prices in Mumbai, and offering a sub-optimal standard of living to its citizens.

“Mumbai is an isolated island with just three or four connections to the mainland. Unless the dominant city integrates with the region, there is no scope for the development of the MMR and the decongestion of Mumbai,” says Pankaj Joshi, executive director at the Mumbai-based Urban Design Research Institute.

On the integration front, while the Fadnavis government has redrawn the plans of Chavan’s, they’re a long way from fruition.

U.P.S. Madan, metropolitan commissioner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), says: “Integration requires physical projects, and for all these projects, acquiring land is a major hurdle. Even after you feel that everything is done and an agreement has been reached, something comes up that starts a new round of negotiations and discussions with the landowners. Once we have the right of way with us, things will proceed faster.”

Growth centres and a new airport city

The MMRDA which is led by the chief minister first came up with the concept of having growth centres in 2012. These are planned clusters with commercial spaces, residences, basic infrastructure to drive employment, and a walk-to-work concept — along the route of a proposed multi-modal corridor outside Mumbai. However, blueprints and MMRDA plans for the project languished for years.

So far, the state government has only been able to push one of its proposed growth centres – a 1,089 hectare unit in Kalyan, close to the Diva-Panvel railway line. The proposal for this was formally approved about 10 months after Fadnavis took charge, and the MMRDA is attempting to develop it through the land-pooling model, which makes the landowners stakeholders in the development.

However, even in this case, the CM has expressed disappointment with the slow pace of progress over the last two years, according to a state government official who wants to remain anonymous. Plans for other growth centres — one in Kharbao between Bhiwandi and Vasai, and another in the Kalwa-Kharegaon area of Thane — are currently in cold storage.

Meanwhile, the state government has taken small steps for the creation of a new city, NAINA (Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area), which Chavan’s government launched in 2013 with a land-pooling model. The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), the planning authority for NAINA, has been working on developing the first phase of the new city, comprising 23 of the 204 villages spread over about 370 hectares.

The Fadnavis government approved the development control regulations for NAINA in April this year, nearly two years after CIDCO sent the proposal. Officials now hope to complete the infrastructure development for the first 23 villages in the next five years.

Prajakta Lavangare Verma, joint managing director at CIDCO, says: “For the first phase, it took us time to educate villagers about the benefits of the scheme and clear all their doubts. Hopefully, it will not take that long for the subsequent phases. We have sent the draft plan for the remaining villages to the government for approval.”

Transport links required

Reports by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the MMRDA since 2005 have pointed to the urgent need of developing transport linkages within MMR, looking at the population surge outside Mumbai.

In 2008, a Comprehensive Transport Study recommended the Virar-Alibaug Multi Modal Corridor, comprising a highway, a Metro line along the median, dedicated bus lanes, pedestrian lanes and lanes for cycling, running through the entire region.

Since then, through various rounds of appointing consultants, there has been no actual progress. The state government is now looking to revive the project, having finalised its alignment, and started the land acquisition process. However, the government does not plan to take up the metro corridor immediately.

The Sewri-Nhava Sheva Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link, which is being planned for more than three decades, is set to see actual work starting only this month.

The Fadnavis government has also reworked the metro master plan to include a bunch of lines to connect Mumbai and the MMR.

The MMRDA is optimistic of the plans taking off this time. “We have crossed many bridges since the initial plans and reports. We now have the entire database ready. We have now reached a level where we can see that things are going to happen,” Madan said.