Mumbai: Central Railway's helipad in its Byculla enclave not taking off

Central Railway's plans of having a helipad at its sprawling Nirma Park Officer's Enclave at Ambedkar Road between Byculla and Chinchpokli is floundering despite the railways' best intentions. Officials in the know said that technical issues — some of which look 'insurmountable' at the moment — have stalled the project and various rounds of formal and informal talks between CR and the Indian Air Force over the past one year have not been able to make much headway. In fact, there has not been much headway since the Indian Air Force officials and the railways had a joint visit of the site on September 22 last year. The issue came up a couple of times more in the joint coordination committee meeting of the railways and state agencies but fell off the discussion list after November last year.

CR, immediately after the Diva-Sawantwadi passenger train accident near Roha on May 4 last year which killed 26 people, had proposed the use of helicopters, preferably of the Indian Air Force, to evacuate the injured quickly to specialty government hospitals in the south. It had even proposed 12 sites of which officials believed the Nirmal Park one was the most apt as it was close to hospitals like JJ, KEM, Nair and its own Ambedkar Memorial Railway Hospital. "The accident threw up this issue because we realised Roha is over 140 km away from south Mumbai and the site of the accident was so tough for road ambulances to reach that we thought of using helicopters in case such a calamity struck in the future. However, the Nirmal Park helipad plan is not taking off at the moment," said a senior CR official.

The toughest issue, officials said, is the presence of mutli-storeyed buildings in the vicinity. The Nirmal Park enclave itself has five such residential towers and several 40-plus storeyed private buildings are coming up in the vicinity. "In the time to come, there will be more such buildings coming up as this area is a major real estate hub and is slowly transforming from chawls and mills to luxury high-rises. So, the problem of having obstruction in the flight and landing path of a helicopter is possible. It is a problem we are unable to get around," said a railway official.

Another problem is that the officers' club within the enclave has heavy tin roofs which might unravel due to the air disturbance caused by landing helicopters. "These tin roofs are heavy and cause damage if they come loose and fall," said an official.