Coastal road project gets Navy’s go ahead

The civic body’s ambitious coastal road project, which will bring the northern suburbs closer to the island city, has got one of several go-aheads it requires to

The civic body’s ambitious coastal road project, which will bring the northern suburbs closer to the island city, has got one of several go-aheads it requires to begin construction.

The Indian Navy has given the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation a no objection certificate for the Rs12,000 crore project, with the condition that the civic body puts in place all measures to ensure security during the construction.

The most important clearance - a green nod from the the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change - is yet to come.

While giving its approval, the Navy suggested the BMC installs CCTV cameras along the 29.2km stretch of the coastal road and send feeds from these cameras to the joint operation centre and regional operation centre of the Indian Navy in Mumbai.

The Navy’s NOC also recommended the civic body provides two coastal police stations for security reasons along the road, with integrated jetties for marine police boats.

Civic sources told HT the Navy’s suggestions will mean more planning and a slight increase in project cost, as permanent jetties were not part of the plan.

“There were no plans, under the detailed project report, to construct permanent jetties. But there were provisions for temporary jetties to load materials brought by sea for construction. As security concerns cannot be ignored, these recommendations need to be studied,” said a civic official, not wishing to be named.

While the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee has said the road’s current alignment – from Princess Street flyover in Marine lines to Kandivali – will threaten the iconic Marine Drive view, civic body authorities told HT they received no such written intimation so far.

The NOCs came in after the civic body wrote to 17 civic and other agencies late last year seeking these permissions before the project starts.

“As it is a very big infrastructure project, we need to consider all utility providers, even our own civic departments, and with various infrastructural projects in the pipeline and taking security concerns into consideration, we needed NOCs from various agencies,” said another civic official.