Mumbai: Usha Aurange and Pushpa Jadhav run a food stall in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex under the Maharashtra government’s ‘women empowerment scheme’ (Mahila Audyogik Utpadak). They’ve been running it for the past 10 years in this area — and when they started, it was a far cry from the upscale business district it is now.
“It was completely empty back then. We were encouraged by the government to set up this food stall here as this place had hardly any restaurants. There was no toilet back then,” Aurange tells ThePrint.
Bandra Kurla Complex, popularly known as BKC, now houses many multinationals in the service sector, including banking, and is also known as a go-to place for its high-end restaurants. In the past half decade, its development has led it to overtake other hubs such as Nariman Point and Lower Parel in South Mumbai.
“It was very difficult for us, but now there are two public toilets that were built over the past decade. The crowd increased and so did our business,” says Jadhav.
Formerly, their stall would be open from 9 am to 6 pm, and they would earn Rs 4,000-5,000 a month — but now, with more people in the vicinity, they’re open from 8 am to 8 pm and make nearly Rs 20,000 monthly, the women tell ThePrint.
Bhavishya Rao, a woman in early 30s who lives in the eastern suburb of Chembur, tells ThePrint that earlier, she used to visit Lower Parel in South Mumbai to hang out, but for the last three years, she has been a votary of BKC; she has visited thrice in the past 10 days.
“The connectivity to the place is good. It is very central, family friendly and even has good eateries from Starbucks to fancy dine-in places. And with the opening of Jio World, it is very pet-friendly too,” says Rao.
Two Reliance offerings that opened this year and last year, the Jio World Drive mall and a convention centre, are BKC’s latest attractions, and draw a lot of people from across the city.
It’s also a safe place, says Rao, with plenty of guards and police around the area.
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BKC’s history
Just about 30 years ago, the area between Bandra and Kurla was a marshland along the Mithi river. But the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the special nodal agency to develop this area, had started making plans in the 1980s to develop this land as an alternative to the Nariman Point and South Bombay region, and work began in the 1990s.
“Because of the marshy land and low connectivity, nobody wanted to go to the place initially,” says city planner Sulakshana Mahajan.
Connectivity remained a huge challenge for years as government facilities such as income tax offices, as well as a family court, were opened in the area. “It was like a punishment posting for government officers,” says Bharat Gothoskar, a city chronicler who leads tours of Mumbai and its historic sites.
“And people were reluctant to move in. As recently as 2003, I remember that there were just one or two food stalls and it was fairly empty,” he says.
The anchor tenants — the first companies to rent space in a complex — were ICICI Bank and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Slowly, at the turn of the century, multinationals began to trickle in. Towards the end of the noughties, the Bharat Diamond Bourse — the world’s largest diamond exchange — set up shop at BKC, as did the consulates of the UK, Australia, Belgium, and Netherlands.
And BKC finally got the feather in its cap when the American consulate moved there from Breach Candy, South Mumbai 2011. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also opened an office in the area in 2016.
“That was the time when the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector was booming, and big multinationals like JP Morgan, Standard Chartered and HSBC, which had offices in Nariman Point, needed a bigger space. And BKC provided that,” says Pankaj Kapur, founder of Liases Foras, a real estate company.
Mumbai Airport is also close by, and BKC grew in importance after the turn of the millennium when people began to travel more and more, for business and otherwise, says Mahajan.
He adds that BKC was a greenfield project while Lower Parel was a brownfield, where the space was limited, and Nariman Point was already full.
Lower Parel was developed as a brownfield project about two decades ago. A quaint locality with mill lands and chawls, it was bought by developers and suddenly became home to luxury towers, malls, and offices. But since the area was already cluttered, there wasn’t much scope to improve connectivity, and traffic remains a problem. Meanwhile, options in BKC opened up.
“And since many people lived north of Nariman Point, it became convenient for them to travel to Bandra,” says Kapur.
In the past decade, the area has also begun to take on a hybrid nature, with the mushrooming of swanky apartment complexes.
But Pradeep Upadhyay, an autorickshaw driver who lives in Bandra and has been driving in the area for the past 10 years, still sees room for improvement. “Industry has grown here, the demand is high, so it would be better if there were a dedicated rickshaw stand for us,” he says.
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An upgrade in social infrastructure
Formerly, BKC’s problem was its connectivity. Commuters, especially office-goers, could only rely on autorickshaws or taxis to get to the complex, as buses were few and far between. The last mile in particular proved a big challenge But BKC is now the heart of the city in terms of its connectivity.
As far as the last mile goes, commuters can now use the e-scooters introduced by MMRDA to reach the complex from the Bandra and Kurla stations, two-three kilometres away, at an affordable rate.
For those travelling from the eastern suburbs, they can take the Santacruz-Chembur link road or the newly opened BKC-Chunabhatti flyover that’s on the Eastern Express Highway. The latest addition is the Kalanagar flyover that connects BKC to the Bandra-Worli sea-link, and beyond that to South Mumbai.
“But still, the complex is a bit difficult to access. What will really change BKC is the coming up of a metro line. Two main metro lines will cross at BKC. It will have maximum footfalls and will make it really accessible to many many people,” says Gothoskar.
The complex also includes residential areas and real estate companies are marketing it as a prime location with several top-notch schools, hospitals like the Asian Heart Institute and Wockhardt multispeciality hospital, and connectivity. Adjoining areas, too, fall in the net — they’re being sold as ‘BKC Annexe’.
According to a report by estate agency and consultancy Knight Frank India during 2021, rental values of the office market in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region dropped by 8 per cent year-on-year. However, in BKC, rental values remained unchanged because of the limited supply of Grade A (highest quality) office spaces and rising demand.
“This will remain the most premium and main business centre for another two decades in my view, unless a business centre comes up on BPT (Mumbai Port Trust) land and can be compared to Canary Wharf in London. Only then will it have the potential to displace BKC,” says Gothoskar.
Areas around BKC, such as Kurla and Chembur, are also flourishing. “People want to stay close to their places of work, and that’s why real estate in places like Kurla, which are low profile, is booming,” said Kapur.
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
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Source: The Print
