Last fortnight, the central government finally gave environmental permission for Mumbai’s controversial coastal road – a 32-km express road proposed along the city’s western coastline that holds out the promise of decongesting Mumbai traffic and opening up more green spaces through reclamation. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar made the announcement on June 9, granting his approval for the Rs 13,000-crore project that aims to create a 40-minute smooth drive from Cuffe Parade in the city’s south to Kandivli in the north.Of the 32 km, at least 10 km will be built on reclaimed land along the shore, which the Devendra Fadnavis-led state government has been projecting as a boon for space-starved Mumbai. The state claims it will not allow real estate or any commercial activities to take over the additional surface area created by reclamation – the new space will be used to create stretches of open spaces along the coastline, with green belts and promenades for public use.If one ignores the argument that the coastal road is really a facility for the more privileged, car-owning minority, the vision painted by the Maharashtra government is grand: the coastal road will not only ease Mumbai’s traffic woes and save fuel costs, but also whip up new beautified open spaces for citizens to take walks in.How likely is it that this vision of more open spaces and promenades will be successful? Going by the condition of the Bandra Reclamation promenade, taken up for beautification after the Bandra-Worli sea link was built, the prospects are not encouraging.The Bandra Reclamation promenade is a 1.5-km walkway, with patches of garden, located on the seaward side of the Western Express Highway and the approach route to the sea link. Walking along its parapet, strollers can enjoy a cool sea breeze and a good view of the central Mumbai skyline even on a summer evening. But on any given day, at any given time, the promenade bears an almost-deserted look, with just a handful of people walking or jogging along its length.This could be because the only access route for pedestrians to enter the promenade involves crossing a busy highway junction, with no traffic signals and cars coming at them from at least three directions, and then walking through a dark tunnel under another section of the highway.



This dark tunnel is the only entrance to the promenade.

“Access is the main problem – you have to risk your life just to cross the road and get on to the promenade,” said Darryl D’Monte, president of the Bandra West Residents Association.The access route has been a problem ever since the walkway was constructed, but the promenade wasn’t always this severely under-used.In 2008, when the sea near Bandra Reclamation was further reclaimed to build the northern end of the sea link, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation had constructed a simple walkway with a parapet for the use of local citizens. For the first two years, locals did actively make use of the promenade.“Initially, many of us used the Reclamation promenade for walks or jogs, even though you had to cross a huge highway road just to get on to it,” said Vidya Vaidya, secretary general of the AK Vaidya Nagar Rahiwasi Sangh, a residents association of Bandra Reclamation citizens. “It used to be a safe space too, but all that changed when DB Realty came into the picture.”In 2010, the MSRDC handed over the promenade to real estate giant DB Realty, which was supposed to beautify the walkway by building an amphitheatre, a cafeteria and putting up art installations. As per the agreement, the realty firm was supposed to pay the road development cororation Rs 99 lakh a year and maintain the revamped space for 15 years in exchange for billboard advertising rights in the area.Five years down the line, almost none of DB Realty’s grand plans for the promenade have materialised. Despite the road corporation fining DB Realty and almost revoking the agreement in 2013, the property firm has only managed to pave the promenade and lay down some patches of green lawn, with all the other work lying incomplete. Today, the parapet is broken in parts, manholes lie open in the middle of the walkway and cement mounds sit on unpaved sections of the promenade and the access road remains dark and risky.



Manholes lie open in the middle of the almost-empty promenade.

Then and now

“There used to be at least a hundred trees on the older promenade that were cut down after it was handed over to the private company,” said Ashok Rochlani, a resident of the Bandra Reclamation area and one of among 30 senior citizens who have continued to visit the promenade every day since it was built.For this group of seniors, using the Reclamation promenade is a matter of convenience and proximity, but even they have a list of complaints. After 8.30 pm, the promenade gets too dark to be safe and security guards are not always present; the beautification work has been unfinished for too long; during the monsoon, the tunnel on the access route gets flooded and becomes inaccessible for pedestrians.Even non-pedestrians from other parts of the city don’t find the promenade an attractive space to visit. “There is simply no space for private cars to park anywhere near the promenade and even our taxi didn’t have space to stop on the highway,” said Ratnesh Jain, a chartered accountant from Navi Mumbai on his first visit to the Reclamation walkway with his family.The deserted face of the Bandra Reclamation promenade is a far cry from the vibrancy of the suburb’s other favourite promenades – Bandstand and Carter Road. The Carter Road stretch, in particular, is a popular destination for joggers, couples, the elderly, children and pet-owners, and it serves as a venue for a number of musical and cultural events.“The difference between the Carter Road and Reclamation promenades is vast, mainly because the first is maintained by local residents associations,” said Vaidya. Another key difference is the fact that Carter Road is not built along a highway, but a regular main road with a host of residential buildings right across from it.In addition, the Carter Road promenade was not built on reclaimed land. The promenades planned on reclaimed land along the new coastal road are more likely to be end up like the Reclamation walkway – built in the shadow of a highway with poor access for pedestrians who actually need to use them.“The Reclamation promenade is a dead area, and this may well be the fate of new promenades along the coastal road,” said D’Monte.