Posh BKC plagued by traffic snarls and wily auto drivers

Mumbai: As the centre of business shifts to Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) with more and more corporate offices moving here, the commercial district has become beset with traffic snarls, which has made it a challenge for commuters to come here for work.

The area is also dotted with five star hotels, diamond bourse, hospitals and schools, apart from top restaurants serving world cuisine. High net worth individuals fork out megabucks to own posh residences here. But BKC is now dealing with poor last mile connectivity. This is compounded by auto drivers fleecing commuters with impunity and haughty Ola and Uber drivers nonchalantly refusing rides.

An executive from the top management of a company, who did not wish to be named, said, “Over a period of time, traffic jams have become so acute at peak hours in BKC that I was compelled to switch to taking the local train from my residence in the western suburbs.”

Until a few years ago, Vile Parle resident Dharmesh Jhaveri, a diamond trader, would reach his workplace at the Diamond Bourse taking a BEST bus from the station, which cost him no more than ₹6 for a single ride. The bus service has been suspended, leaving Jhaveri and many like him to shell out way beyond their commute budget to pay for a single seat in a share-auto – the price could swing anywhere between ₹30 to ₹100, depending on the demand and desperation of the commuter.

“BEST and the traffic department should be blamed for this state of affairs,” said Jhaveri. “Can BEST tell us why the service from Bandra East station to the Diamond Bourse was revoked? Now I have to walk half a kilometre from the station to the bus depot.”

Distressed by the cartelisation by auto drivers and unavailability of public buses at the station, the diamond trader has taken it upon himself to navigate through the bureaucracy to get BEST to resume its services from Bandra station. Over the last five months, Jhaveri has written several letters to the transport body on behalf of commuters.

According to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the daily footfall of office goers ranges between 2 and 2.5 lakh, while the business district gets nearly 2 lakh visitors every day. And yet, multiple connectors from the western and eastern suburbs built to smoothly reach BKC have not eased traffic chaos.

“We have no control over auto rickshaw drivers from outside Bandra and Kurla stations. We have also complained to RTO about drivers breaking traffic rules and auto rickshaw drivers who overcharge by plying on a share basis,” said KK Tiwari, an auto rickshaw union leader. Multiple unions have questioned if the drivers have relevant permits, driving licence and other documents to run their vehicles commercially.

While RTO has said it will “look into illegal acts, if any”, BEST has blamed the traffic jams on “auto rickshaws that block the roads”. “We used to operate 11 routes around five years ago, which has now grown to 13 to connect BKC,” said Hanumant Gophane, spokesperson for BEST.

More than 74,000 passengers use BEST buses to BKC daily. Despite the transport body operating 13 different routes, citizens said they are often left to the mercy of share auto drivers operating from both Bandra and Kurla railway stations.

Recently, a scuffle broke out between a commuter and an auto rickshaw driver when the former protested the latter running the commercial vehicle on a share basis. A video of the incident was posted on Twitter and widely shared. Traffic police later took action, penalised the erring driver and some others. The department however said the issue should be taken up by the RTO. HT spoke to an officer at the RTO, but he refused to comment on the issue.

When this situation was presented to Pravin Padwal, joint commissioner of police (traffic), he said that his officers had scaled up the matter to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to set up designated auto and taxi stands. “We take regular action against refusal to ply and have penalised 4770 auto and 798 taxi drivers from between January and April in BKC,” said Padwal.

Ahead of the recently held Backstreet Boys concert, cops had to alert citizens about slow moving traffic in the area through a tweet. Ongoing infrastructure projects to create new connectors add to the problem. Padwal said after construction of the BKC connector to the eastern suburbs, many commuters preferred using this route over Dharavi or the Sion-Chembur Link Road. “As the BKC connector is a shorter commute, many motorists prefer that route adding to further traffic jams,” said Padwal.

(Inputs from Megha Sood and Satish Nandgaonkar)