The Mumbai Skywalk Project is a series of skyways for pedestrian use in the Mumbai Metropolitan region. The project was conceived to connect suburban railway stations or other high-concentration commercial areas with various heavily targeted destinations.
The first skywalk was inaugurated in June 2008 from Bandra station to Kalanagar Junction stretching over 1.3 km. About 50 such sky walks were proposed by MMRDA with an average cost of Rs 12 Cr. MMRDA managed to recover part of this cost by hoisting ad hoardings.
Till last year, 36 skywalks were completed, quite a few have been scrapped such as the Mahim east skywalk since it clashes with Dharavi redevelopment project. Now many skywalks which were built in a hurry may get demolished apparently because they obstruct the Monorail / metro projects. So much for urban planning !
For the uninformed citizens, the skywalk is a cheaper way for the government authorities to provide the hassled pedestrians of an alternative avenue to walk on the roads, which are not in the right condition to walk in the first place !. The reasons for the plight of the pavement and streets are numerous as one would guess; poor condition of the asphalt roads, encroachment by hawkers who now throng every nook and corner of the suburbs & city, car population sky rocketing with little space for road expansion (due to island limitation as well enncroachers)..etc
Why do I say that sky walk is a cheaper avenue ? Let me try and explain my point of view.
Today it is practically impossible to break the nexus of the hawkers, political parties and BMC and hence obstacle-free pavements are things of the distant past. Look at the enormous cost involved, both tangible and intangible costs, if one were to evict the encroachers from Mumbai roads and streets. There will be political outrage and υπροαρ, if parts of Dharavi or parts of the encroached parts of the Railway land at Bandra or parts of Mira-Bhayandar slums were to be demolished by BMC. The economic cost would be far lesser than the political cost !
Cant help comparing BMC's predicament with that of the USA although it may sound a bit stretched here !. One knows that the Taliban is a creation of the US of A because of the various historic affiliations and ambitions that country harboured in the region. BMC (with its the long history of corrupt officials and corporators) has systematically allowed encroachments in the form of slums, commercial establishments to come up in the city and suburbs.
Over a period of time, these encroachments have been regularised through a systematic regularisation fee, both accounted and unaccounted.Now when these regularised encroachers (Taliban) are coming in the way of development; lack of walking space, driving space and living space !!. The crises has grown manifold and still ballooning due to unabated & unchecked encroachments in all suburbs....!
Skywalk is just an illustration for driving the point of how authorities keep on giving a raw deal to tax payers in Mumbai. This project was proposed as a quick fix solution by the authorities to show that they care for the citizens of Mumbai in providing free walking and commuting space. However it has hardly been effective for pedestrians. Because most structures have either been put in the wrong place (ex. the skywalk which stretches on the SV Road at Lucky junction, it is empty at any peak hour of the day !) or it is simply not the right solution for the already hassled citizen of Mumbai. Just imagine a tired office-goer or a senior citizen is expected to walk a flight of 50 stairs and then walk for 350 m and then walk down 50 stairs again !!
Wonder when Mumbaikars will get anything close to Shanghai or Singapore or whatever the new CM claims to give !!
