Mumbai Metro work hits vendors hard

Barricades in green and blue cover the front of shops along the Jamshedji Tata Road at Churchgate in South Mumbai. The construction of Metro Line 3 which will connect Colaba-Bandra – Seepz has left one side of the moderately wide lane blocked, not only congesting the road but also hampering local businesses.

Right outside the Churchgate subway, a small crowd of vendors discuss their problems while struggling to make themselves audible against the loud drilling noise coming from the site. Navin sits idle facing the main road. His v ada pav stall has been dislocated from the Khau Galli on the Tata Road.

“After 30 years of staying in one place, I have been forced to move out. My business volume has come down by half,” he said.

Raju Pillai, another vendor who sells t-shirts, said the metro construction resulted in huge losses for him. “Everyone in this lane will say the same thing, Khau galli was a better lane, almost everyone is making losses; my business is down by half.”

A few metres away, Fair Price General Store, that used to be crowded during rush hours, is seeing footfalls dwindling.

“Profits are down by 40 per cent. We don’t mind making adjustments for development but just hope that the construction is completed on time,” said Rahul Nanadu who owns the Fair Price General Store.

In Hutatma Chowk (known as Flora Fountain in its heyday), Rizwan Khan, a vendor who sells jeans is wary of coming off as a victim of rehabilitation.

“I do not want to approach the authorities because I fear being rehabilitated to some other place.” He said his business has come down by at least 50 per cent. “The crowd used to come from the road close to Siddhartha College. Now that area has been blocked because of the metro construction and people use other paths,” he said.

The metro construction in Mumbai has swallowed up lanes, wide and narrow, not only at Churchgate but across the city.

Most vendors at the Girgaum Road at Charni Road, a narrow lane with metro barricades masking an array of shops complain about the lack of visibility of their shops.

Deepak Shah from Delicacy sweets explains how he has seen a steady drop in his patisserie business since the metro construction started.

“The metro construction has impacted my sales by approximately 40 per cent,” he says. His shop has been masked by the metro for the last four months. “I can’t get customers with a hidden shop.”

Vinod Jaiswal runs a lottery business on a shop that has been leased to him. His business has decreased by 50 per cent, “If this goes on for one or two more months, we will go into losses and we would have to shut down since I won’t be able to pay rent,” he said.

When contacted, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation said they have not come across such complaints from local businesses. R Ramana, Executive Director (Planning) at the MMRC, told BusinessLine: “If anybody is affected, we will help them in getting visibility and access.”

(The writer is an intern with BusinessLin e’s Mumbai bureau)

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