mumbai

Updated: May 21, 2017 01:04 IST

Shiv Sena leader and minister of state for housing Ravindra Waikar demanded that a proposed station at Jogeshwari on the Metro-7 corridor be named after party founder late Bal Thackeray, or more specifically, the trauma care centre nearby that bears his name.

Waikar sent a letter to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority—the implementation agency of the Andheri (East)-Dahisar (East) line — on April 14 to name the station as Hindu Hruday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Trauma Care Centre Station. The station is near Hindu Hruday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Trauma Care Municipal Hospital on the Western Express Highway at Jogeshwari.

MMRDA plans to call the station JVLR Junction after Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road.

In the letter to the MMRDA commissioner, Waikar wrote, “It is learned that the name of the station on the Metro corridor has been proposed as JVLR Junction. However, keeping sentiments of the locals in mind and the fact that the proposed station is close to the Hindu Hruday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Trauma Care Municipal Hospital, the station should be called Hindu Hruday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Trauma Care Centre Station.”

Meanwhile, a senior MMRDA official said it was too early to decide the names of stations.

“We will take an appropriate decision at the time of commissioning of the corridor,” said Dilip Kawathkar, deputy metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA. The 16.5-km elevated metro line is expected to be commissioned by the end of 2019.

This is not the first time the Sena is demanding a name change for a mass transport project.

A few months ago, residents of Dadar (East) demanded that the name of a station on the monorail corridor be changed to Vitthal Mandir from Dadar East. Rahul Shewale, Shiv Sena MP from Mumbai South Central, had backed the residents’

demand.

The Shiv Sena and its ally Bharatiya Janata Party have been busy proposing name changes.

The state government has sought to rename Elphinstone Road Station to Prabhadevi after a 300-year-old temple of the Hindu deity in the area; and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus.

The centre has already approved the state’s recommedation to rename CST.

READ

Centre nod to rename Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Elphinstone Road station

Grant Road to Gamdevi: Sena wants Marathi names for Mumbai train stations