Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has struggled to make headway with respect to the controversial flyover project along the busy arterial Pedder Road since 1995 and even to this day the state has to brave opposition from high-profile residents of the locality even as it fumbles for a solution.
Now the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has joined issue with the state government after rural development minister and Mumbai's guardian minister Jayant Patil hinted a few days back that the project was to be scrapped.
An MNS delegation which met Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday was told that no final decision has been taken on scrapping the flyover project and that the larger interests of the citizens would be taken into consideration. Chavan also assured that a public hearing will be held soon. Residents of this posh locality, particularly noted singers Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, have opposed the flyover for both the noise and air pollution that it would lead to.
They had also cited that the area lies in a proven seismological zone and any drilling would affect the stability of existing buildings. In 2001, the sisters had led a Pedder Road Residents Association delegation to meet then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to express their opposition to the project.
The project has been stalled since then and a few days back the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation scrapped its plan to construct the 4.5-km flyover.
The government then looked at some of the new options — such as constructing smaller flyovers, a coastal road from Worli to Priyadarshini Park and then a tunnel under Malabar Hill up to Girgaum Chowpatty. However, with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections slated for early 2012, the MNS has sensed an election plank warning that the Pedder Road project should not be cancelled as it was beneficial to all citizens.
Thackeray said that if a project is abandoned owing to protests from local residents, then his party would insist that all future infrastructure projects be subject to such approvals.
