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Ten years on, Kale Marg locals await widening of road

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Residents of Kale Marg, a major road that connects the Kamani area in Kurla (West) to Saki Naka in Andheri (East), have been awaiting widening work for the past 10 years. According to the residents, the narrow road, leading to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, is always choc-a-bloc with vehicles, and despite perennial inconvenience, they are forced to use the road for their daily commute because of lack of other options.

Residents informed that they had received two notices on widening of Kale Marg — one in 2005 and the other in 2007 from the L-ward of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) — but no action has been taken by the civic authority so far. The current width of the road is approximately 30ft and the plan was to widen it to 21.40 metres, they added.

Derrel Fernandes, a Kurla resident, said he has been pursuing the issue with the civic authorities for many years, but to no avail. "I have highlighted the problem several times to former chief minister Prithviraj

Chavan and municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte. Using the road to commute to Saki Naka is a nightmare, especially for senior citizens. The road is always heavily congested and it takes us more than an hour to reach Saki Naka," he said.

"This also makes the road accident-prone. Moreover, many vehicles are randomly parked on the road, reducing its width even further. We are highly inconvenienced because of this, but our pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears. The work has not even been started as yet," he added.

Another resident said: "There are a few shops and chawls between Kamani and the Bail Bazaar area. The BMC should have at least started issuing notices to those, so that the work could start."

While Additional municipal commissioner of L-ward Prashant Sapkale did not respond to calls, chief engineer of roads, Ashok Pawar, emphasised that the work has to be done at the ward level.

Kurla's L-ward, a thickly-populated area, has always been notorious for lack of order and poor civic amenities. Narrow and congested roads. lack of traffic control, illegal encroachment on roads and parking issues plague the area. Illegal constructions have also contributed to congesting the area. Residents, however, say that such constructions have stopped to a great extent during the past two months.

 

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