While on the one hand the concreting of two roads in Cheetah Camp in Trombay has just begun after a two-year delay, residents have opposed the BMC’s current plans saying that it should also remove encroachment and construct the road in its actual size. Rafiqe Sheikh, a resident of Cheetah Camp, told mid-day that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) issued a work order for both roads in April 2022. “The BMC is not doing the concreting as per the actual size of the road. There is encroachment along both sides of the road. If the BMC removes this encroachment, the width will increase by at least 5 metres,” Sheikh said.

The residents said that shops have encroached on the footpath, and hawkers have further encroached on the road. Another resident, Sayyad Abdul Sattar said that the BMC has been ignoring encroachers. “If the BMC removes the encroachment along Ganesh Kirti Mandal Road, two vehicles will be able to pass parallelly. But the BMC is not serious about road widening. There is a possibility that there was political pressure on BMC officers not to remove the encroachment,” Sattar said.