Mumbai: MMRDA plans to drop National College station from Metro 2B plan

The poster displayed by MLA Ashish Shelar

In a victory for Bandra SV Road residents, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has decided to drop National College Metro Station from the Metro 2B (Andheri to Mandale) alignment plan.

As per the earlier plan for the Metro 2B corridor, there were supposed to be two stations in Bandra West - Bandra (near the Lucky Restaurant signal) and National College (near Jeevan Kiran bungalow opposite Railway Colony).

In February this year, residents learnt that the National College station was shifted opposite Tata blocks Parsi Colony, starting from Grace Galaxy Hotel and extending up to the Maruti Auto vista showroom on SV Road in Bandra. In the new alignment, the Sadhu Vaswani Garden - the only green space in the area - located on Bandra's SV Road, would shrink by approximately 290 sqm.

Residents through BJP MLA Ashish Shelar had approached the state authorities seeking shifting of the National College Metro Station from outside their residential area to about 100 metres north.

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The MMRDA has now submitted a proposal to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde suggesting dropping the National College station. Shelar hailed the decision, and even put up a poster, sharing MMRDA's letter outside Tata Blocks Parsi Colony Pashin Katpitia, president, Bandra Tata Blocks Welfare Association, said they weren't aware of the move. "We were pleasantly surprised to see the poster."