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It has been nearly 22 years since I moved to Vashi in Navi Mumbai (NM) which is touted as Flamingo City. Flanked by mangroves and wetlands, the city has been a breeding ground for these gracious migratory birds, fast declining in their numbers. Navi Mumbai is one of the planned cities in India developed in the 1970’s. CIDCO, the City and Industrial Development Corporation, under Maharashtra government, was entrusted with the planning of the hinterland with its large vacant land mass, just across the Thane creek, north and northeast of Mumbai. The entire idea of a planned city was to decongest Mumbai and yet be connected with it, with a reasonable public transport system. Vashi, one of the earliest nodes to be developed, is just about 10 kms away from Mumbai.
Over the years, other residential, industrial and commercial nodes or small towns such as Belapur, Nerul, Kopar Khairane, Khargar, Sanpada, and Gansoli have been developed further into the interior, some more open and green and others crowded; each is further divided into sectors. Markets, religious places, schools, banks and green spaces are also well situated. There was a plan of sorts for all nodes. Turbhe, an industrial zone, also with a sprawling slum and waste disposal site, was reasonably isolated. (This is an entirely another story altogether.)
In the 1970’s, officials of CIDCO would visit central government and private offices and urge their employees to buy houses and land in Navi Mumbai. With soft loans from Govt of India, lakhs of government employees leased out plots of land in Navi Mumbai from CIDCO.
Vashi appeared disappointing at first. But soon I started noticing its broad roads (vis-a-vis the narrow ones in Mumbai) laid out in a grid, continuous water supply and green spaces big and small. Above all, one immediately noticed the total absence of slums and hawkers on roadsides. A good open bus depot with several buses going to different places in Mumbai, and to other nodes of Navi Mumbai, along with a rather swanky railway station in those early days, gave us relatively easy mobility to Mumbai. The trains on Harbour line would take us to the southern tip of Mumbai, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a journey of 45 minutes.
Now, nearly 20+ years later, the planning seems to have gone awry in Vashi (and perhaps also in other nodes) with massive mindless concretisation everywhere: the much-touted mangroves and wetlands are facing systematic threats from builders (as is the case with the once beautiful Parsik hills in Belapur, now a site for illegal quarrying of stones). CIDCO-built three-storied buildings constructed in 1970’s are fast being replaced by towers of 30+ floors at nearly every street and corner by builders, with pushes from local politicians and bureaucrats; mindless structures, including the Vashi commercial complex on the land of the former bus depot, or aviaries in gardens ironically in the Flamingo city, are aplenty in this once beautiful city going astray. Poor or dangerous AQI and heat islands, terms once rarely heard, are now regularly reported. Noise pollution, around all religious places and caused by barats too, has broken all decibel levels with police turning a deaf ear.
As far as easy accessibility to Mumbai goes, for many of us it is a challenge to use the public transport. Our once reasonably good bus depot is non-functioning since 2019! The multi-crore newly renovated bus-cum-commercial complex is complete for the last two years, but still the buses are not plying from the depot. It is sad to see school and college students and other citizens stand on the roadside in heat and rains to catch a bus. Apparently, commercial interests take precedence over public benefits.
The good old slow train on Harbour line remains the sole mass public transport system to Mumbai city. Recently, after many years and with great trepidation, I undertook a few train journeys to CST and to midway stations, during non-peak hours. Though the trains generally run on time with lakhs commuting daily, the surging masses could be frightening! Not much has changed on the Harbour line, though some stations had a few cosmetic changes, with escalators functioning on some stations only. I can confidently say that historically, the Harbour line of Mumbai has received step-motherly treatment from the Central government. Imagine train trips in these non-AC coaches during summer and other months during peak hours! And there is a talk of developing a third Mumbai!
Most upsetting, there is no talk of building the supporting infrastructure (water supply, electricity or traffic management), even as towers loom large. One expects a planned city to simultaneously plan for these essential services, if not build them in advance. Well, perhaps this is the situation all over the country.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.