Ancillary 9

Mumbai, a city that was originally 7 miniature islands during the British rule, has grown into a bustling metropolitan, the financial capital of the country, and caters to one of the most integrated economies of the world. The city has been exponentially increasing in size, year after year, and being on the Arabian Sea coast, its only option is to reclaim land and build further into to see.

Off recently, the Government of Maharashtra proposed a mega coastal road project, that connected southern region of the city to the north, spanning across the sea, with several underground tunnels along the way as well. This has, however, created a huge outcry. Environmentalist saw the drawback of excessive reclamation, creating a hazard for marine life in the adjacent sea (which is already on a disintegration curve due to affluents emitted through the city’s waste disposal techniques). To add to that, with rising sea levels, this construction is a safety hazard. Unpredictability of floods and tides could create havocs on these roads, that stretch only a few meters above sea level. In fact, with land being reclaimed from the sea below itself, it allows for greater impact from rising sea levels.

A similar situation occurred with China, during its reclamation in the South China Sea for military purposes. Even though public moment in this area was bleak, China saw the potential of severe calamities such as tsunamis that could destroy its mainland. With Mumbai itself being the first line of contact, it would create large scale destruction, creating infrastructural loses ranging in billions of dollars.

I feel the city could adopt better connectivity methods by adopting strategies used by other heavily populated cities such as Dubai or New York. Dubai created parallel freeways (on land) connecting major hubs within the city, to avoid clutters in tinier streets. New York too introduced one-way lanes that helped ease the traffic.

On the larger scale, the coastal road issue drew attention onto the greater climate change issue that urgently needs to be addressed for Mumbai to thrive beyond 2050.