KRVIA Blog

BKC : Does the ‘C’ stand for Controversies ?

Heer Shah 

First Year B.Arch 

 

 

MMRDA established the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) as a secondary Central Business District (CBD) in Mumbai with the goal of slowing the growth of offices and commercial activity in South Mumbai and accumulating short-term real estate gains. The idea was to create an area solely dedicated to large commercial spaces and premium residential complexes, making it a unique and one of its kind ‘micro-market’ in the city. Though this idea seemed to fail in the 1980s, with land available at a bargain price of Rs 3000 per square metre, as the 1990s arrived, prices in BKC began to rise. The last land auction at BKC took place at the end of the 1990s when the price was 3.5 lakh per square metre. MMRDA upped BKC’s floor space index (FSI) from 2 to 4 for commercial plots and from 1.5 to 3 for residential plots to satisfy demand, making this megaproject a huge success and highly profitable for them, but it came at a cost and a lot of controversies took place to maintain the magnificence of BKC.

As we know, BKC has been created by carrying out landfilling of 630 acres of the Mithi River, wetlands and mangroves. An SC appointed panel has stated that the reclamation of land for the creation of BKC is responsible for the overflowing of the Mithi. The report also states that in the vicinity of Mithi around BKC, out of the original water spread area of 800 acres in 1930, 400 had already been reclaimed by 1973. The overflowing of the Mithi was a major reason for the catastrophic 2005 floods, and causes floods every year during the monsoon as it paralyses all three of Mumbai’s suburban railway lifelines and forces evacuations of hundreds of people living along its banks. Although the BMC and MMRDA have built retention walls to direct the flow of the river, widened and deepened major portions of the river to ensure water doesn’t overflow, the river continues to flood during the monsoon, bringing the city to a standstill. The panel found that the upper reach of the river from Vihar Lake to Andheri-Kurla road has a very steep gradient, whereas downstream from Andheri-Kurla to the Mahim Causeway is a flat gradient. Thus, any increase in the water flow causes the river to flood now as it doesn’t have enough space to accommodate that extra water flow owing to the huge piece of land reclaimed for Bandra Kurla Complex. The final report stated, “This reclamation has led to the waters overflowing, stagnating and rising in the river inside the retaining wall section, thereby affecting the outflow of flood waters into the river and upstream areas.” The panel also observed that it compounded the problem during high tide. “This has also resulted in the excessive situation, thereby grossly undermining the river’s water-carrying capacity,” it stated.

 

Before the establishment of Bandra Kurla Complex, South Bombay was an agglomeration of most of the corporate offices in the city, making it a strenuous task for employees to reach to their offices. Most of them lived in the suburbs or outside the city in areas like Thane, forcing them to travel for up to 2-2.5 hours using public transport during rush hours, increasing congestion and traffic in the city. Thus the idea of BKC as a commercial hub closer to the city centre emerged, with a local train station originally proposed for the area. However, the idea was discarded, the reason for it being that BKC is close enough to the Kurla, Sion and Bandra railway stations. One might think if this was done because all the major international and national companies were to have an office space here and a local train station just wouldn’t be the “smart” choice.

The Maharashtra government was eyeing a plot in BKC for the Metro-3 (Colaba-Bandra-Seepz) car shed, but eventually rejected the option inJanuary 2020 and shifted the plot to  Aarey Colony. Mumbai’s Aarey Colony is often referred to as the ‘city’s lungs’, spread over 13000 hectares and home to over 27 Adivasi villages and inhabited by various animal species. Building a metro car shed over here would require the cutting of over 2700 trees and displace animals out of their homes. Yet, this plot was approved over the BKC plot as it was of very high real estate value with other projects planned around it and rebuilding tunnels towards this depot would delay the project. Hence, the Aarey site gets approval amidst strong protests from locals, activists, celebrities and the work began, only to be stopped by the government later.

With the presence of Avenues, streets and wide footpaths, travelling in and around BKC was easy, but reaching BKC wasn’t painless, especially with the lack of a direct railway connection, poor roads and less frequency of government buses. In recenttimes, the BMC has constructed various bridges and roads of excellent quality like the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road to Kurla, BKC Connector to the Eastern Express Highway and the Kalanagar flyover to the Western Express Highway where no heavy vehicles are allowed for increased connectivity to all the parts of the city. They have also designated parking.

With the presence of Avenues, streets and wide footpaths, travelling in and around BKC was easy, but reaching BKC wasn’t painless, especially with the lack of a direct railway connection, poor roads and less frequency of government buses. In recenttimes, the BMC has constructed various bridges and roads of excellent quality like the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road to Kurla, BKC Connector to the Eastern Express Highway and the Kalanagar flyover to the Western Express Highway where no heavy vehicles are allowed for increased connectivity to all the parts of the city. They have also designated parking.

( This is a post that forms a part of a series of writings by students made during the course of an  elective “ Writing About Infrastructure” conducted by Hussain Indorewala in February 2022)

Introduction of small, rental electric bikes and cycling tracks make commuting within BKC easier. However, not much measures have been taken to promote public transport in the region. A few years back, the BMC had assigned designated bus lanes for smoother and faster movement but poor execution  with no designated lane in certain patches and poor quality forced them to withdraw their idea. With less frequency of government buses in a commercial area like BKC, people were forced to wait for hours before getting a bus, leading to the emergence of private companies like ‘cityflo’ which provide buses for a group of people to and from their homes. The Metro-3 project under construction will add a mode of public transport but private vehicles and buses form the major part of modes of transport. BKC – the financial and commercial hub of the city as well as the apex of post-work life, does not hold back on its grandeur, but one glance at the back hand and you’ll see it stirs up a lot of controversies and consequences.