Mumbai: After lying dormant in the city archives for almost half a century, the 120-foot DP Road has finally come out of the yellow pages and onto the chaotic streets of Mumbai. Ground Zero Kandivali is 250 meters to the east, and the fighting has been monumental. It involves a budding township, warring politics, unequal land claims, bureaucratic hurdles, a court case – and Singh Estate, a colony of 310 slum families standing in its way.
For more than a decade, since the battle lines were first drawn, residents of Singh Estate have resisted every attempt to treat them as casualties of development. Living on 250 meters of land earmarked for DP Road, they were labeled as slum dwellers, but they had grown into a colony, with some houses as big as 1,000 square feet. Many had backyards, some even had parking spaces.
The residents themselves were not opposed to resettlement; They were demanding fair and equitable rehabilitation in exchange for making way for the new road.
His strongest weapon was an imaginary line dividing the two assembly constituencies. Singh Estate found itself on the right side of this line, giving residents political support through a bitter fight that went all the way to the Chief Minister.
How did all this happen?
visionary plan
The 120-foot-wide DP Road was first included in the Development Plan (DP) of Mumbai in 1967 as an alternative to the Western Express Highway. With population growth projections in the western suburbs, the road was replicated in the DPs of 1991 and 2014 – implemented till 2034. It is 5.2 km long from Dahisar to Goregaon, but only a part of it – 580 m – falls in Kandivali.
With time, Lokhandwala Township, built on 200 acres in the 1990s in Kandivali East, grew and expanded. The amenity-rich, family-oriented, gated township grew into a small suburb of 30,000 residents, housed in 53 buildings. The neighborhood is still growing, and so are its aspirations.
Santi Shetty, who moved to Lokhandwala in 2011 and started a local group called We All Connect (WAC), said, “To access the highway, we are almost completely dependent on Akurli Road. This 1.5 kilometer stretch is always clogged with traffic. The development of DP Road will change everything for us.”
From Lokhandwala-Akurli Road junction, the new road will extend to SN Singh Road (via Thakur village), and proceed to the highway.
The election promises of Atul Bhatkalkar, the BJP MLA elected from Kandivali East in 2014, were the first concrete efforts to make the DP Road a reality.
First, the BMC had to acquire 580 m of land: the road portion was marked as a private forest and had to be dereserved; Located within the 245 meter Mahindra & Mahindra factory complex; The next 250 meters were owned by Messrs Bradco, a real estate company; The last 85 meter stretch was under MHADA. It took six years but BMC finally acquired the land by 2020.
The most challenging task was the 250 meter distance in which the Singh Estate is located, which falls on former Bradco land. BMC initially offered alternative housing in Mahul and Kandivali near Chembur. The alternative houses for Project Affected Persons (PAPs) were of 225 sq. ft.
Mahul was selected because the government there has 3,800 flats for PAP, which have no buyers. But residents of Singh Estate said Mahul is too far and the area, which has refineries and chemical factories, is highly polluted.
310 houses vs 250 meter road
Working in favor of the Singh estate was an imaginary line dividing the two assembly constituencies. While Lokhandwala township comes under Kandivali East constituency, Singh Estate comes under Magathane constituency. On behalf of Lokhandwala, BJP MLA Atul Bhatkalkar was pushing for the new DP Road and on the other hand, Shiv Sena MLA Prakash Surve was for Singh Estate.
That’s when the war really started.
The BMC had served the first batch of eviction notices to Singh Estate in 2017, when residents were asked to submit documents. Only 100 residents responded. Their opposition was so great that when the final notice was given in November 2020, only six residents responded.
MLA Surve said, “BMC was offering rehabilitation in Mahul, which the residents there were opposing.” “And why wouldn’t they be? At the opposite end of town, no one wants to go there because of the pollution.”
BMC then offered monetary compensation as per ready reckoner rates with a limit of 50 lakhs. Singh Estate also did not like this.
final push
Covid brought some relief from traffic for residents of Lokhandwala Township, but when the second wave subsided, the traffic on Akurli Road became heavy again. “When the offices started calling people back, the traffic went from bad to worse. It took 30-40 minutes to cover a distance of 1.5 km to reach the highway,” Santi said.
By now other people had also joined the fray. “Our first campaign was back in 2016, which led to some traffic rules being changed. That made some difference,” said Shishir Shetty, a resident of Lokhandwala since 1996 and co-founder of the Lokhandwala Residents Association (LRA), which is supported by Bhatkalkar.
Also claiming credit is Lokhandwala resident Nitin Jha, who runs a non-profit organization Soham Foundation. Jha, currently associated with Shiv Sena, said, “By 2022, BMC had built the road on Mahindra land, but it ended behind the wall of Singh Estate.” “It was my movement that led to the wall being demolished, giving two-wheelers an alternative.”
The big push came in 2022, when Bhatkalkar raised the DP Road issue during the monsoon session of the state legislature. The project was upgraded to ‘Critical Infrastructure Project’. But there was a slight change – till June 2023.
Both opposition MLAs Bhatkalkar and Surve were called for a meeting at Sahyadri Guest House, chaired by then Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, with civic officials. When they set out, an alternative plan, to build an elevated bridge instead of a road – to save 310 slum houses – was on the cards!
This idea did not gain momentum. Bhatkalkar considered it unnecessary; Former corporator Surekha Patil (BJP) said this was another ploy to delay the road; And the civil authorities felt and Surve believed that it was futile.
Nonetheless, a feasibility study was ordered and three bridge styles were proposed: a cable-stayed bridge, a bow-string bridge with a steel girder, and a bow-string bridge with a stainless steel girder. the cost was between 500 crores 950 crores, and the scheme will take approximately 3 years to implement. Most importantly, all options require removal of slums.
Logic prevailed and BMC ruled in favor of DP Road.
Then another plan was briefly considered. The reconstruction of the road was discussed in another meeting chaired by the then Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in March 2024.
At this point, Shishir Shetty, supported by Bhatkalkar, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court.
Through the PIL, Shetty asked, “Is it fair that after 80% of the road is completed, after acquiring land from multiple parties, constructing most of it and spending years and crores, the State of Maharashtra can reconstruct the road at the cost of public money?”
The court directed the municipal commissioner to take a decision on realignment and in October 2024, civic chief Bhushan Gagrani decided against the proposed realignment. Most importantly for the residents of Singh Estate, he said, “eligible PAPs will be accommodated as per the government policy in the surrounding area”.
After a year’s setback, BMC goes back to looking for PAP houses.
“From refusing to share documents to giving up their homes, Singh Estate residents have reluctantly accepted resettlement,” said a BMC official from the maintenance department of R South ward, which has been overseeing the issue since 2023.
In June 2025, the first 47 residents were allotted flats in Bitcoin Elysium Building in Kandivali East. The lottery for another 120 houses was held on December 15 and 38 houses will be allotted soon.
All that is left for the residents of Singh Estate is a feeling of betrayal. What started as a fight did not go in their favor till the end. Suresh Arjunwade, 65, said, “No politician was actually on our side, they only pretended. After a point, we could not continue the struggle.”
With BMC elections in January, BMC is moving fast to rehabilitate the remaining eligible PAPs. And, even though the new road may take shape only after the rehabilitation of the last batch of PAPs, the civic administration has promised to build the new DP road by early next year.
But there are already doubts. With the new road potentially merging with the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) in Goregaon, more than 1,000 slum encroachments stand in its path.
The road seems destined to repeat its complicated story.
