Mumbai: As the sun sets over the Arabian Sea, the iconic curve of Marine Drive gleams with its usual splendor. But beneath the glittering surface of South Mumbai’s elite A-ward, a storm of civic discontent is brewing. With the long-overdue Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections finally scheduled for January 15, the residents of Fort, Colaba, and Churchgate are drawing a battle line between ‘VIP heritage’ and ‘ground-level reality’.
For four years, the city’s most high-profile ward has functioned without elected corporators, leaving a vacuum that residents say has turned pedestrian-friendly promises into a hawker-heavy nightmare. The ward even lacks a full-time assistant municipal commissioner for the last 30 months as executive engineer Jaideep More has been handling the position of the ward officer as an additional charge.
Despite housing the legislative assembly (Vidhan Bhavan), the state secretariat (Mantralaya), the BMC headquarters as well as the city and state police headquarters, A-ward’s streets are increasingly becoming a combat zone for walkers. The post-pandemic era has seen an unprecedented mushrooming of illegal hawkers, particularly around Churchgate Station and the Colaba Causeway.
The Colaba Causeway, famous for its affordable street shopping, has become a den of illegal hawkers. While only 83 hawkers have been licensed by the BMC, the total number of stalls in the lane goes up to more than 250. The Clean Heritage Colaba Residents’ Association (CHCRA) filed a petition against the illegal hawkers but have expressed discontentment as the ground situation remains unchanged due to the unending legal battle.
Pervez Cooper, vice president of CHCRA, said, “The BMC comes and evicts a few hawkers and within a few hours, they return back to their respective positions. It’s all a futile exercise. We cannot walk on our footpaths and nor on the roads since they are heavily congested with traffic and double-triple parking. We are fed up with the BMC as even the former corporators have failed to address our issues during their tenure. I believe the military will do a better job than these corporators if the BMC is handed over to them.”
Going further south, the Cuffe Parade area has been dealing with issues of heavy traffic congestion due to various consulates, the National Company Law Tribunal as well as the corporate offices. The residents have also complained of power outages, repeated digging of roads as well as encroachment by slum dwellers.
“Cuffe Parade has never lost power as much as it does now. The streets are defaced with illegal hoardings and the roads are left dug up over and over again. On one hand while we are losing mangroves, the land is being encroached upon. If someone comes to me asking for a vote, I need to ask them about my right to decent living, where I don’t suffer from traffic, encroachment and non-walkability,” said Babso Kanwar, joint secretary of Cuffe Parade Residents’ Association.
In a ward where some of India's most expensive cars reside, there is nowhere to put them. The lack of structured parking towers has led to pavement parking where high-end SUVs frequently block sidewalks, forcing pedestrians into the path of moving traffic. The narrow lanes become impassable during peak hours, often delaying emergency services like ambulances and fire tenders.
Ashok Gupta, vice president of Marine Drive Residents’ Association, said, “The high number of visitors at Marine Drive and Wankhede Stadium causes a lot of traffic as people are not used to the crossing patterns. The housing societies on the A to D internal roads of Marine Drive lack adequate parking space since they are very old and therefore with the increasing number of cars in all the buildings, they have to be parked on the roads. Now since the Orange Gate tunnel will come out near Bal Bhavan, it will also add to the traffic as there is no u-turn at the spot.”
A-Ward Details:
Area- 11.41 sq.km.
Boundaries- Gateway of India in the East, Marine Drive in the West, Marine Drive’s F road in the North and Navy Nagar in the South
Population (2011)- 2.10 lakh
Electoral Wards- 225, 226, 227
Residents Highlight Issues:
Encroached Footpaths
Lack of parking space
Traffic congestion
Power outages
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