The tales and woes of a project

About the Coastal Road Project

Construction of this project with a total length of 10.58 km from Princes Street Flyover to the southern end of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link

4-lane over-fill roads, bridges, elevated roads and tunnels included in the project

Work started in October 2018 and is scheduled to be completed by November 2023.

Due to this project, the existing road traffic problem will be reduced by reducing the time taken by the road commuters.

Levels of air and noise pollution will also be reduced.

Improvement of public transport through dedicated bus routes and additional green belts to be created.

A glimpse of how many things have to be considered while setting up a facility development project, was seen on the occasion of the "Coastal Road" project at the Worli coastline.

Worli Koliwada has a history spanning many centuries. It is difficult to think of any infrastructure development in Worli or via Worli except Worli Koliwada. The "Coastal Road" project has been an obstruction here in Worli itself for the past five years, that too due to obstruction of fishing off the coast of Mumbai. The Coastal Road is being connected to the Sea Link near Worli. The connector work connecting the two roads is starting near Cleveland jetty there.The proposed gap between the pillars was 60 metres, by which the passage of Koli fishermen’s boats would have been obstructed. The fishermen demanded that this gap be widened. Finally, according to the report of the committee appointed for this purpose, it was finalised at 120 meters, announced Chief minister Eknath Shinde recently. The announcement has paved the way for the commencement of the stalled work on the coastal road.

The Municipal Corporation had appointed a committee for this. At the end of the study, the experts of this committee had recommended to the Municipal Corporation that the distance between the two pillars should be 160 meters. After discussions and meetings for the last two years, the Municipal Corporation decided to cancel Pillar No. 8 of the 3 pillars 7 to 9 in Worli and keep the distance between the 2 remaining pillars at 120 meters. A consensus has been reached between the fishermen association and the municipality. The urban development department under the Chief Minister has given this a green light.

Even in a city like Mumbai, the traditional occupation of the locals (Koli community) is fishing, so only 60-70 boats go fishing from Worli. Since they have been ignored and neglected, their livelihood was being affected. There were many conflicts between the municipality and the fishermen. A report was also prepared that there was no fishing even happening in this area in the first place. In fact, apart from bombil and bhing fish, oysters are also found here in the rocks in large numbers. The relationship between Worli Koliwada and fishing is as old as Mumbai city, how can it be overlooked and denied? Around 500 families would lose their jobs due to the project. There is a fundamental difference between livelihood and traditional means of livelihood.

What about traditional means of livelihood?

Employment is done for earning a living by developing skills. But in traditional employment, skills are often inherited. It is also a deeply emotional and personal matter. Therefore, it would be wrong to ignore the traditional means of livelihood of locals under the name of development. But the municipality ignored all this and insisted on not reducing the distance between the pillars. At the end of the court case, the distance between the pillars had been increased. Increasing the distance between the pillars will facilitate boat access, but environmentalists and fishermen are raising questions about how sustainable marine life will be after deep-sea construction. Although the distance between the two pillars has widened the access to the boats, the fishing industry is on the verge of extinction..

On this occasion, the BJP has started interfering in Shiv Sena's constituencies keeping an eye on municipal elections, Shiv Sena youth leader Aditya Thackeray's assembly constituency is Worli.