How The Bandra-Kurla Complex Can Help Mumbai Decongest

Urban authorities across the world formulate plans to decongest cities. However, efforts to decongest Mumbai, the country's financial capital, have had more disastrous consequences than in any large city in the world. Instead of lowering, such decisions have ended up raising the population density in areas, where the infrastructure is not strong enough to support it.

However, the plan to decongest the central city makes sense in the context of the topographical constraints and cultural evolution of the city. This is very true of the efforts to move the central business district (CBD) of Mumbai from Nariman point to the Bandra- Complex (BKC). This has been successful, despite the claim that it was bound to fail.

Real estate demand in the Maximum City has been shifting.

Social media giant Facebook has decided to have a permanent office in the BKC. The company has leased 22,000 square feet of space on the seventh floor of One BKC, a tower of Radius Developers. Currently, it has a temporary office in the BKC. cently, Bank of America, Pfizer, Trafigura, Abbott India, and CitiBank had moved its offices to the BKC. Celebrities like Aishwarya Rai and Kapoor and bankers such as Uday Kotak had recently bought expensive apartments in the BKC.

A comparison of variation in maximum FSI in cities across the world

Infographic by Sandeep Bhatnagar

The de jure CBD of Mumbai is located at the tip of a peninsula because in the 19^th century, it was easier to install a port there. But, such incentives do not exist anymore. Much of the city's population live far from Nariman point. Much of the area around Mumbai's de jure CBD is surrounded by water. Moreover, the commercial floor space index (FSI) in the BKC is 4. The catchment area around the BKC is many folds of that of the catchment area around Nariman Point. Unsurprisingly, in 2012, the BKC has emerged as the de facto CBD of Mumbai.

How should the city adjust to this?

• The BKC still faces many constraints similar plans face. Typically, when urban- local authorities build satellite cities, most people who work in these cities live outside. Most people who live in satellite cities work outside it. Instead of decongesting a city, this leads to longer commute times, and greater traffic congestion. Something similar has happened in the case of the BKC. Most people working in the BKC are from central and South . In a city where average commutes are much longer, and infrastructure is poorly developed, this leads to an average commute of one-two hours for many of them, at peak hours, every day.

• Even though residential real estate in the Bandra- Complex is very expensive, the development has not been quick enough. Currently, around five per cent of the residential development in the catchment area is in BKC. Without the area meeting the residential needs of the corporations that move its offices to BKC, traffic congestion in Mumbai is likely to remain severe.

• Real estate in Mumbai is quite expensive, and this is true of the BKC. Adjacent to the BKC are low-rise settlement areas such as the Dharavi slum and the historical village settlement of Chuim. It is a result of poor planning that relatively inexpensive slums and low-rise settlement areas are near highly expensive suburbs. This makes low-rise settlement areas near the BKC expensive properties. By formalising these settlements, the government can raise funds to modernise the city, and make property in Mumbai affordable to everyone.