Infrastructure

In a previous article, we followed the delayed rehabilitation of the victims of a 2019 landslide in Kurar Village, Malad. After three years of living in the same place that killed 32 of their neighbours, 72 families were finally shifted to an SRA building in the area on August 22nd, 2022. That was only part of the story - 86 families were shifted within two months of the tragedy 30 km away to Mahul. This is their side of the story. Inteyaz Ansari gestures to two buildings, Building 10 and 31, in a sea of nearly identical buildings numbered 1…

This is the second and final part in the series on skywalks in the city. Read the first part here. Fifteen years after they were commissioned in 2007, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is now attempting to make skywalks more people-friendly in Mumbai, by installing escalators wherever required.  The BMC has now appointed a consultant to study if, where and how escalators could be installed in the 23 skywalks in Mumbai. The most recently inaugurated 24th skywalk at Jogeshwari (E) already has an escalator installed in it. Escalators have already been sanctioned at five skywalks on a pilot project basis.  The Mumbai…

While social media lauded the efforts of the civic body and state administration in preventing widespread urban flooding during the initial spell of the Northeast Monsoon, the past week also saw parts of North Chennai's residents feel neglected in terms of response to the rains and overall flood mitigation efforts.  "If the Corporation can constantly keep vigil in core areas in Chennai like Nungambakkam, what about North Chennai? There may be so many people who are educated enough to raise complaints in the centre of the city. But North Chennai is predominantly made up of the working class, who are…

As proposals of building new skywalks in the city meet with stiff public opposition, Mumbai faces the dilemma of whether to continue building skywalks or to gradually phase them out.  Skywalks are elevated pedestrian walkways connecting various heavily targeted destinations either to railway stations or to other high-concentration commercial areas. The purpose of the skywalks is the efficient dispersal of commuters from congested areas to strategic locations, such as bus stations, taxi stands, shopping areas, etc, according to the MMRDA website. But opinions are divided on whether skywalks as an infrastructure project are useful or not. While the government is convinced…

The 10.58 km-long coastal road project has faced opposition from environmentalists, urban planners and fisher communities ever since the construction first began in 2018. The road, being built on the promise of effectively reducing city traffic, runs from Princess Street at Marine Drive to the Worli end of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. This under-construction part of the project is under the umbrella of the larger plan that stretches up to 29 km and connects Marine Drive to Kandivali. On October 7th, 120 architectural firms under the banner of Mumbai Architect Collective (MAC) wrote a letter to Ashwini Bhide, Additional Municipal…

The construction of an elevated rail line on a 5-kilometre stretch between Velachery and St Thomas Mount began in 2000, as part of the Mass Rapid Transit System’s (MRTS) extension project in Chennai. While the MRTS lines between Beach to Mylapore and Mylapore to Velachery have been operational for many years, the line between Velachery and St Thomas Mount that passes through Puzhudhivakkam and Adambakkam has been delayed forever. The primary reason for the delay was litigation related to the land acquisition of a 500-metre stretch between Jeeva Nagar and St Thomas Mount. With the litigation ending nearly a year…

Land is scarce in Mumbai. The island city to the south, an island only in name, is surrounded by the sea on all but one side. Towards the north, it is bordered by the neighbouring city of Thane. With such space constraints, to accommodate a population of 12 million, there is only one-way housing can go, and that is up.  How much housing can be built is thus less determined by land than by the amount of floor space, multiplied when the number of floors in a building reaches greater heights. This is controlled by the Floor Space Index, or FSI,…

Nobody wants 2022 to pull a 2015 on Chennai. Each monsoon since the infamous Chennai floods has been a reminder of the devastation that rains can cause to the city. Last year's rains were an eye-opener that the city's flood management still leaves a lot to be desired. The civic body is working frantically to complete the stormwater drain work in Chennai this year before the onset of the monsoon. Since March 2022, the Greater Chennai Corporation has been carrying out desilting existing stormwater drains and building new ones in areas with no drains or damaged ones. The question in…

"Currently, district or city-level disaster management departments are predominantly concerned with rescue and recovery, rather than resilience and preparedness, which is what they have to focus on," says Jaya Dhindaw, Program Director of Integrated Urban Development, Planning and Resilience at World Resources Institute, India. Masterplans for the city are made for longer spans but cities develop at a much faster pace in comparison to these planning processes, researchers say. "The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) does not have the agency to make plans for cities," says Garima Jain, Gilbert White fellow at the Arizona State University, who works closely with…

Acquiring private land and property for major infrastructure projects like the Bengaluru metro has always been controversial. Especially the amount and manner of compensation to those whose land/property is acquired. Various laws and court verdicts have laid down norms for such acquisition. But the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) has drafted its own rules on this issue, as it speeds up work on Phase 2, or what it calls the Blue Line, a 57-km stretch that connects Central Silk Board to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) via KR Puram. Slated to be completed in 2024, this project linking the Outer Ring…