As reported in TOI by Chittaranjan Tembhekar, on 17 October 2009
The bottlenecks on the roads leading to the city’s crowded suburban stations will not disappear soon. Reason? The World Bank (WB) has finally dumped the Rs 220-crore Station Area Traffic Improvement Scheme (SATIS) that would have widened the station roads and removed encroachments (by resettling hawkers and slums) from its project and funding list.
According to sources, the WB had asked the BMC to complete all formalities regarding planning and appointment of implementing agency by August 2008. “Fed up over no response and inordinate delay from BMC, the WB decided not to fund the project and deleted it from its MUTP programme,” admitted senior officials in the BMC and MMRDA.
However, senior BMC officials insisted that the corporation would implement SATIS on its own. “The WB can advise us, but cannot
force us to implement SATIS or any other scheme under their projects,” said a senior BMC official. Experts are, however, sceptical about the civic claims, given that political interference and red-tape invariably delay its projects.
The SATIS was formulated as a part of WB-funded Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) in 2002 and involved road development, widening and encroachment removal in and around Dadar, Andheri, Ghatkopar, Chembur, Malad, Borivli and Kurla stations in the first phase.
Incidentally, the MMRDA is implementing the skywalk part of SATIS. The other parts of the project were handed over to the BMC for implementation over 30 months ago.
The project involved resettling and rehabilitation of hawkers and slumdwellers around railway stations, widening of the roads leading to the stations, thereby improving the dispersal system at stations. Interestingly, the Thane municipal corporation recently developed Thane railway station under its SATIS programme, the only successful programme in Mumbai region till today.
