Wadala to lose bus terminus

New venues
According to sources, the MMRDA has already begun scoping for places in Thane, Navi Mumbai and areas beyond Borivli for the bus and truck terminuses.
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The bus terminus will have world-class passenger platforms, food courts, cinema halls, departmental stores, budget hotels, convenience rooms, rest rooms, recreation centres and baggage rooms. This project should be operational by 2013.

An official said, the main reason behind setting up the ISBT is to streamline random pick-up and drop points and discourage indiscriminate parking of private buses to decongest the city's roads and ensure smooth traffic flow.
"The plan to move it out of the city originated because of several upcoming projects in the area such as the
monorail between Wadala and Chembur, which will be operational this year," added the official.

MMRDA joint project
director Dilip Kawatkar said, "Nothing concrete has been decided yet. The truck terminus was shifted because it was causing traffic congestion in the area. If the decision to shift the proposed ISBT has been taken, there must be some logic behind it."

BKC-II?
Officials said that since the MMRDA is the special planning authority of the area, it wants to sell off its plots and transform Wadala into a business hub similar to the Bandra-Kurla Complex.

The MMRDA owns over 100 hectares of land in the area. In May last year, the authority had fetched a
record price of Rs 4,050 crore for a 2.5 hectare plot at Wadala.

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