Poll revives talk of metro stn near National College

Congress candidate Asif Zakaria is pushing for the station aggressively since the area has five educational institutes, residents, a large workforce and a floating population of shoppers

Mumbai: A year after it was scrapped, a metro station near RD National College in Bandra West is back in the reckoning, thanks to the assembly poll scheduled on November 20. Congress candidate Asif Zakaria is pushing for the station aggressively since the area has five educational institutes, residents, a large workforce and a floating population of shoppers. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and sitting MLA Ashish Shelar, who played a key role in getting the station scrapped in September 2023, has also come around to support it, saying it should be constructed where it was planned initially.

Poll revives talk of metro stn near National College

As per plans drawn up by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), a station was to be developed on the metro 2B line outside the Railway Colony/ Jeevan Kiran Bungalow on SV Road in Bandra West, close to National College. The proposed station was relocated to the area outside Tata Blocks, next to Sadhu Vaswani Garden, in 2016 owing to a micro-tunnel at the original location. Though construction commenced near the garden, next to the intersection of SV Road, Linking Road, Turner Road and Station Road, it had to be suspended midway due to objections from residents who were against the axing of several trees in the garden to make way for a staircase. They also demanded that the station be relocated to the earlier spot and sought Shelar’s support.

In September 2023, MMRDA scrapped plans of building a station in the area. A separate Bandra metro station is in the works near Mohammed Rafi Chowk while the Saraswat Nagar metro station is slated to come at Santacruz.

The 2.5-km stretch between the two stations has five educational institutes, thousands of residents and a floating population of shoppers, said Zakaria, a former councillor, pressing for the revival of the station near National College. “Another metro station is required in Bandra apart from the one near Bandra railway station,” she noted.

Zakaria said the microtunnelling work at the spot where the station was originally planned was complete and a pillar could be erected next to the inspection chamber. “The station should not have been scrapped,” he said.

Having approached the MMRDA and state officials to get the station scrapped last year, Shelar was earlier shy of supporting its revival. Now, he too wants the station to be constructed at the original location. “The station should come up at the original location. It is not only this issue but also micro and macro issues concerning infrastructure and civic matters that I addressed during my tenure,” he said.

Residents’ groups too are in favour of reviving plans for a metro station, if it is relocated to the area near National College. “We were opposed to the station being located right next to a junction, and the impact it would have on the garden. So far, we haven’t heard about plans for the station plans being revived,” said Zameer Palamkote from the Bandra Tata Blocks Welfare Association.