Urgent: Water transport required for crumbling city

Imagine you hop on to a catamaran at Borivli and reach Nariman Point in just 40 minutes You avoid endless traffic jams and a tiring commute Or that you board a vessel at Ferry Wharf on the eastern coast and reach Nerul in 30 minutes A Maharashtra stateappointed study group had dreamt of this in 1983 but the plan is yet to take offOne thing that differentiates Mumbai from its siblings elsewhere in the world is the lack of vision successive governments have shown in exploiting water for passenger transportThe port city came into being as a bunch of seven islands and later became the countryrsquos economic capital History tells us that the city was abuzz even then because of extensive use of water transport After Independence the city planners ignored water transport because of other faster modesTill date some waterways services continue on the eastern and western coasts but their purpose is limited to ferrying passengers from Madh Gorai western Uran and Elephanta eastern The seawaters have not been used to transport people to their workplaces in south or central Mumbai from extended suburbs and towns in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region MMR As a result the cityrsquos suburban train network is crumbling with overload and roads have little space to accommodate existing vehiclesOn the other hand other international port cities have been thriving on waterways for transporting both passengers and cargoThe situation is in for a change says the incumbent BJP government It has promised to fasttrack a programme of giving the western and eastern seafronts a faster safer and nonpolluting water transport Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis made this announcement while launching passenger speed launch services between Bhaucha Dhakka Ferry Wharf and Uran Mora last Friday Propelled by Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari and Fadnavisrsquo joint efforts the ferry has reduced travel time on this stretch to 30 minutes from the 60odd minutes taken by the old diesel enginefired launches Fadnavis said the R120crore project would be completed in 18 months from JuneJuly this year In this project passengers from NerulBelapur Revas and Mandva will be able to travel to Ferry WharfRollonRollOff boats may also be pressed into service to allow passengers to take their fourwheelers on board a ship from Ferry Wharf till Mandva Rewas or JNPT The service will help ease commuting woes as people can reach Alibaug in 60 minutes for their onward journey A trip to Alibaug by road currently takes more than 4 hoursHowever the western seafront may not get the facility soon Going by the experience in the past 20 years the western coast has not been so luckyA couple of years ago the MoEFrsquos Expert Appraisal Committee EAC had approved the 55km passenger water transport on the western coast primarily because it would ease traffic The permission came with a rider that the state will have to adhere to environmental conditions According to the EAC the natural environment facilitated the development of waterways as an alternative in Mumbai to ease commuting and also save on time and fuel consumption MSRDCrsquos study had suggested that water transport could take 30000 cars off the cityrsquos roadsThe EAC had asked for integrating the six passenger terminals with other public transport systems in the city and had instructed that noise barriers be installed at the terminalsThe CongressNCP governments had tried to explore waterways but infighting between the two partners proved a major hurdle in the project Also several failed bids and trouble over environmental clearances did not allow the project to push forwardThe citizens of MMR who are blessed with seafronts expect Fadnavis and Gadkari to speed up projects People surely know that creating water transport is not as difficult as making bigticket projects like Metros sealinks and coastal roads Meantime letrsquos expect that Gadkarirsquos pet project the Duck Bus is pressed into service on the eastern and western coast as early as possibleThe writer is Political Editor of midday