Forest hurdle to link road project

The ambitious Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project cutting through Sanjay Gandhi National Park will never take off. The forest department has reservations about this road project.

“We cannot carry out any work on the project because the forest department has
not given us the clearance.

It can be said that this project will never take off, as it passes through a national park wherein no development work can take place,” said SV Joshi, chief engineer, roads, BMC.

Joshi also said that the MMRDA was to develop the road, but they handed it over to the civic body.

The GMLR is a proposed missing link or a non-existent road envisaged by the MMRDA.
The authority has already constructed a road connecting the Western Express Highway in Goregaon and the Film City — a 1.61-km stretch — known as the GMLR extension.
“The BMC in their development plan had proposed development of the GMLR. It is the duty of the BMC to develop the road and not of MMRDA. We have done our work of constructing the GMLR extension,” MMRDA chief Ratnakar Gaikwad said.

The people living in Borivli and Mulund had been eagerly looking forward to the construction of GMLR as they now have to use either Ghodbunder Road (Thane) or a narrow road of Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon.

Interestingly, a monorail has been proposed on the alignment of the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road. Gaikwad had said: “We have asked consultants to study the route. These areas are important. A monorail would provide people with better connectivity.”