No elbow room

8220;Byculla is just a small part of the E-Ward which stretches from the sea and Reay Road on the east side to Sane Guruji Road, Western Railway, Jehangir Boman Road and Shuklaji Road on the west side. From the north it begins at Dattaram Lad Marg and goes on to Ramchandra Bhat Marg, Wadi Bunder and Maulana Shaukat Ali Road in the south,8221; says Kiran Achrekar, E-Ward Officer. This area includes Nagpada and Kamathipura, too.

The ward covers an area of 7.32 square kilometres and has an approximate population of 410,824 with an additional daytime floating population of 50,000. The ward is under the jurisdiction of three police zones and two traffic divisions andalso a port zone. There are BEST bus depots at E S Patanwala Marg, Bellasis Road and ST bus depots at Mumbai Central. The ward comes under the Agripada telephone exchange.

According to Achrekar, one of the major problems that this ward has to face are the vegetable vendors sprawled all over outside the Byculla Railway station. The wholesale market here was shifted to the Agriculture Produce Market Committee APMC at Navi Mumbai several years back to reduce congestion in the area but the business continues to thrive here.

8220;Every morning, tempos arrive here loaded with vegetables. The area gets dirty and there is no place to walk on the footpaths. We have taken up the issue with the APMC but nothing has worked out. Earlier, the BMC carried out crackdowns on the vendors every morning but this kind of action cannot be sustained for long,8221; says Achrekar. As one resident, B K Patil, puts it, 8220;It is a matter of convenience. Though the entire stretch outside the station gets dirty and congested, we find iteasier and cheaper to buy vegetables from here. It must be convenient for the wholesalers too8221;.

8220;The Jijamata Udyan is a major attraction and attracts thousands of people everyday. Though this is a floating population it does cause traffic congestion in the area,8221; says Achrekar, adding that 8220;the hutments at Reay Road are another major problem. As they are illegal, we cannot even provide them with amenities.8221; The slums at Reay Road were allegedly occupied by Bangladeshi migrants several years ago and have encroached upon both the sides of the road. Like slums in other parts of the city, these too are eating into the road space. What8217;s worse they are adding floors. Kamathipura has its own share of problems like lack of pavements and unhygienic conditions.

The BMC8217;s Officer on Special Duty OSD S S Bhagwat, who has pioneered Advance Locality Managements ALM for garbage control in the city, says the areas which fall under Bombay Port Trust BPT at Mazgaon are badly maintained. Though that is aninternal problem, the BMC is in charge of cleaning up the area. Bhagwat is responsible for setting up almost 300 ALMs in the city and has begun vermiculture at Sarkar Towers, Jijamata Udyan and Joseph Baptista Garden in E-Ward.

Achrekar says that his ward, especially Byculla, is otherwise well-connected and does not lack facilities. 8220;There are more than ten reputed convent schools here and this area has the highest number of school buses. There is hardly any water problem due to the presence of the water reservoir at the John Baptista Gardens built by the British.8221; He further informs that the Byculla flyover, a major landmark, will soon wear a new look with a fresh coat of paint and plants on the parapet to be sponsored by Britannia, a private company. Other bridges in the area will also get new designs for dividers. Infrastructure projects being taken up in the ward include laying of new water mains at D P Wadi Narialwadi and laying of sewer line at Kasar Gully, Mazgaon. The slums of Narialwadi, 65Dockyard Road, the area behind Ice Factory at M D Naik Marg and Babu Genu Nagar are also being covered as part of the slums rehabilitation programme.