Man behind country’s first-ever flyover Shirish Patel passes away at 92

Over the past many decades, Patel not only criticised several infrastructure projects and policies, which he thought, would pose an hindrance towards the city’s overall growth, but also proposed several alternative ideas to the administration. In many cases, his inputs were acknowledged by the administration.

Rahul Kadri, one of Mumbai’s eminent architects who has worked with Patel for several decades, said that Patel was an idealist, who always remained vocal for the right cause.

“Shirish Bhai grew up during the 1940s, when he saw the independence movement closely, he had an idealism towards nation building within him. His vision was unparalleled, and he always spoke about collective development and equitable growth not just for Mumbai but also for the entire nation,” Kadri told Express.

Patel was instrumental towards forming an independent technical committee, to scrutinise the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) plan of demolishing and reconstruction of the Malabar Hill water reservoir located beneath the Hanging Gardens — a move that would have led to a substantial loss of Mumbai’s green cover.
Apparently, the BMC reversed its decision a few months later.

“It was only after Shirish Bhai wrote to the then municipal commissioner, the administration took the decision of forming a technical committee – of which I was a part of. Be it senior bureaucrats or ministers, everybody regarded Shirish Bhai’s opinion with utmost respect considering his reputation and work experience,” Kadri told The Indian Express.
Kadri maintained that his father, architect I M Kadri and Patel went to the Pune Engineering College together and since then, the two have been family friends.

“After I started my own company, Shirish Bhai became a mentor to me. Whenever I faced any complexity in the job, I would approach him and he used to give me a patient hearing. It was comfortable speaking with him, since he never looked down with anybody. He was a person with great intellect, coupled with humility,” he said.

Throughout a career that spanned over five decades, Patel held significant roles as technical advisor with the state government — he was part of the expert committee to the state government in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.

“One of the key ideas he (Patel) advocated was to maintain a community land trust. Which would be a system that would reserve land parcels for creating affordable housing units in the same manner like how there are reservations for roads, schools and gardens. He used to say that it is only through this methodology that we would be able to achieve equitable housing in Mumbai – a solution that would solve Mumbai’s key issues of slum formation,” urban designer Jasmine Saluja told The Indian Express.

She maintained that implementing this mechanism into the system was one of the primary missions for Patel.
Furthermore, Saluja maintained that despite being one of the respected engineers of the country, Patel always stayed grounded and welcomed fresh ideas that came from his younger colleagues.

Saluja also co-authored the two volume book “6 Metros” with Patel outlining a new planning and city design methodology for emerging Indian cities.

Architect Pankaj Joshi stated that besides housing management Patel also criticised the transportation planning in Mumbai.

“We also extensively critiqued the public transportation planning including the Mumbai metro network for its ill planning, the monorail alongside mega-infrastructure projects such as the Coastal Road and Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (Atal Setu),” said Joshi.

Architect Alan Abraham said that the reason why Patel was a standout was because he was never concerned about his social status.

“There were many people who disagreed with certain projects privately. However, nobody criticised the administration’s policies openly. This is how Shirish Ji was a standout. He was never concerned about his social status or whether his statements will have any implication on his career. He always used his accomplishments and reputation to do what’s best for the city,” Alan told The Indian Express.