Swarajya's Mumbai Infrastructure Conclave Brings Together Ideas For Rebuilding India’s Financial Capital

India’s maximum city is in the midst of a massive infrastructure transformation.

This ambitious overhaul includes a network of sea links, coastal roads, metro systems, expressways, a second airport along with redevelopment and planning for new growth centres — all aligned towards a new chapter in the city’s evolution.

Among the latest projects, is the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL), which was recently opened to public connecting the mainland to the satellite city, Navi Mumbai, while, two more notable projects, the Mumbai coastal road, and the metro line-3 (the longest underground metro in India) are slated for phased opening this year.

Swarajya’s Mumbai Infrastructure and Realty Conclave was envisioned to bring together all key characteristics of these ambitious projects and opening a platform for dialogue among state bodies, policymakers, infrastructure experts, and citizens.

Bringing Together Diverse Infrastructure Growth Stories

Given the projects are underway at different stages around the city, the conclave brought together key development authorities in Mumbai, including MSRDC, MMRDA, MMRCL, BMC, alongside private entities and citizen experts — to address the specifics, challenges, best practices, funding frameworks, and the integrated vision through these developments for Mumbai’s economic growth.

Sanjay Mukherjee, Commissioner, MMRDA, during the conclave, perfectly captured the necessity for infrastructure changes, and stated, “The city has been historically India’s first financial capital, and it continues to be so. If there is anything which Mumbai does not have, is land. The city can only grow with integration of the metropolitan area. Thus, to unite the overall region, connectivity remains the key aspect, to link more than three crore citizens, and open up the regions for future economic growth.”

Over the years, the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR) has faced numerous challenges as it continued to grow. With an eye towards the future potential, the government aims to harness the benefits of these major transport infrastructure projects to bring the satellite towns closer to the island city.

“The coastal roads, sea links, Goregaon-Mulund link and others were all conceived in 1960’s, considering the same integration. One example of this is the recently launched MTHL, which connects the south of city to Navi Mumbai,” added Mukherjee.

Once completed, this road network will encircle the entire region with faster and seamless connectivity to all growth centres and key locations of the MMR. (more on this)

Further, not only within the city, several expressway projects are underway connecting it to other regions in Maharashtra.

Giving an overview of the expressway development plans, S K Survase, Chief Engineer, MSRDC, stated, “MSRDC has planned around 5,000 km expressways around Maharashtra in a grid pattern. Of this, Nagpur-Mumbai, Nagpur-Goa and Mumbai-Goa expressways will form a golden triangle, supplemented by additional expressways like the Jalna-Nanded and Virar-Alibaug corridor. This triangular network will already cover 29 of 36 districts of the state. The goal with the planned network of expressways is to connect all districts within six hours to the economic centres.”

Adding to the road networks, much anticipation surrounds the expansive metro network with 14 corridors planned for the city.

With currently three operational lines, that are successfully serving the city transit needs, key lines under discussion include metro Line-3, and Line-8 — which is slated to connect the two airports.

Owing to the demand, the Navi Mumbai airport, the second airport for the MMR, serves as a crucial segment in this transit integration. The Metro Line-8, along with other metro extensions, also aims to expand the catchment area of the new airport.

However, considering the land crunch and dense character of the city, such large-scale projects also bring into discussion the innovations and solutions that had to be implemented for their successful execution.

Challenges For One-Of-Its-Kind Projects In The City

One of the most challenging and distinctive projects is the Mumbai metro line-3, undertaken by MMRCL, between SEEPZ-Bandra-Colaba — planned as the only metro connecting the southernmost parts of Mumbai.  

Ashwini Bhide, MD, MMRCL, gave insights into overcoming the challenges and stated, “The 33.5 km fully-underground corridor is the first of its kind in India, with 26 underground stations. For the same, almost 56 km of tunnelling beneath Mumbai’s most congested areas had to be done, including under dilapidated buildings, heritage structures, existing infrastructure like metro line-1, flyovers and the airport.”

“For this project, as most stations are underground, the built-up area created is nearly 5.25 lakh sqm beneath Mumbai, without disturbing the pace of the city or without causing any safety concerns. To achieve this feat, 17 tunnel boring machines had to be deployed, despite facing challenges posed by limited space,” she added.

The conclave also provided an opportunity to connect with the private sector leaders, who under the public private partnerships, play a key role in executing the mega infrastructure projects.

With the focus on the Trans-Harbour Link, Raman Kapil, President, Tata Projects, said, “It is a massive project, and any engineer would like to work on such an engineering marvel. The team pushed the boundaries of construction technologies to build this structure in the sea, while maintaining ecological balance. The area is a vital birding zone (home to flamingos and other birds), so construction methods were devised to minimise disturbance to marine life. For instance, reverse circulation drilling was used for piling to reduce vibration and disturbance to marine life."

To get this sea bridge which has 16.3 km of its span over creek, another feat was the use of orthotropic steel for certain navigation spans to reduce weight, which otherwise with normal concrete would have been much heavier.

Kapil added, “This orthotropic steel was manufactured across the world, transported and assembled in India and then ultimately erected. The entire span was lifted on vertical stand jacks, floated near the substructure and were then placed very gently on the substructure. With the coordinated efforts between all the stakeholders, ultimately, we now have a bridge which is going to last 100 years, which stands as an iconic structure for the city and people.”

Real Estate Growth And Infrastructure Funding

With connectivity in place, avenues for real estate and devising new planning patterns for improved quality of living in the emerging regions have also opened up.

Developers and builders, are increasingly eyeing the expanded areas such as Navi Mumbai, and others in the MMR for future growth.

According to developers, just as how the connectivity infrastructure has been planned, making the impossible possible, equal emphasis should also be given on master-planning and funding strategies to put in place civic infrastructure, public amenities, schools and improving the overall quality of life as new developments emerge in these regions.

Understanding more on the funding for such projects at the state level and at the level of urban local bodies (ULB) there are several critical factors that influence the funding patterns.

Dr Harish Ahuja, Head of Power and carbon markets, NSE, pressed at some of the fundamental challenges for funding structures, starting with limited revenue generation capacity due to the less population numbers for many municipal corporations, which has led them to depend on state-led funding.

Additionally, while only a small percentage of projects get timely completion, others experience cost escalations due to delay.

The overlapping of agencies on diverse infrastructure projects, due to fragmented urban governance also brings in confusions in project fundings.

Also, while at the central and state level there is robust framework for public-private partnership (PPP), at ULB levels for fundamental infrastructure, there needs to be a clear PPP framework, which makes every project come up with unique challenges.

As a result of such factors, it is mostly on the states that are doing the heavy lifting for funding these infrastructure projects.  

Such extensive participation of the state, coordination between development bodies, global fundings, private players and citizens in the expansion of the city — all converge towards the goal for Mumbai to retain its status as the economic capital of the nation and serve as a model for development for other emerging cities.

Mumbai To Remain As The Economic Powerhouse?

With huge emphasis being laid on opening up the tier-2 and tier-3 cities, growth opportunities and economic powerhouses are poised to diversify from key metropolitan cities in the years ahead.  

However, Harsh Madhusudan, an economic expert, noted, “Based on this recent infrastructure boom, with credits to Devendra Fadnavis, who first pushed for this development as the chief minister and now as the deputy CM of the state, the dynamics have changed."

He added, "Looking together at all the existing and upcoming development in Mumbai and supporting policies, has increased the catchment area of land crunched Mumbai, which has revived the trajectory for at least the next 20 years.”

In the same context, infrastructure experts from the city have their expectations now shifted from the overburdened Mumbai Island to the MMR, the growth regions which will be opened up with connectivity to accommodate new ways of planning and supporting infrastructure for incoming investments.