The entire Govandi, Chembur and Anushakti Nagar areas of Eastern suburbs may soon get a major face-lift as public representatives of this area have proposed an overall beautification plan to the municipal body.
In a high-profile meeting held last week, Nawab Malik, state minister and legislator from Anushakti Nagar, proposed the idea of beautifying the Eastern Express Freeway tunnel and its adjoining areas to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
The 1 km long tunnel extends between Shivaji Chowk at Chembur and Vashi Naka at the Eastern Freeway. Nearly hundreds of slum dwellers are based in shanties at the elevated land over the tunnel and the state minister has also proposed an alternate rehabilitation plan for them as well.
"The slum dwellers are living in a land-slide prone zone, we are coordinating with the district collector for their rehabilitation," Malik told FPJ.
"We have also proposed a presentation so they can transform the open elevated land over the tunnel into a hanging garden and paint the tunnel as well," Malik added.
Alongside this the state minister has also urged the civic body to expand the capacity of the two water reservoirs in his constituency. There are two water reservoirs at Trombay - one high reservoir and one low reservoir.
Malik said despite having capacity the reservoirs doesn't get adequate supply.
"The high reservoir has a quota of 115 millions of liter (MLD) water per day but it only gets around 100 MLD, while the low reservoir has a quota of 90 MLD while it gets around 40-45 MLD," Malik said.
A senior engineer of the water supply project department said, the quota will be automatically increased after the proposed underground water supply tunnel between Chembur and Trombay gets constructed.
"The construction work is in full force and we expect to complete the digging works by next eighteen months, this will boost the water supply speed in the entire Chembur and Govandi areas and will bring relief to more than five lakh residents living in these areas," said the official.
Senior civic officials who were present in the meeting said that they had given their input to the minister and soon another review meeting will be called for taking the planning forward.
"The whole project will be carried out in a phased manner, the public representatives have expressed their concerns and civic officials also gave their inputs, soon another review meeting will be arranged following which things will be taken forward," said the official.