The Final Destination (The Cemetery Road)

The Final Destination

To make this article interesting, I have chosen an informal and gossip style of writing rather than a narrative style. Who doesn’t like gossip right! Just that, this isn’t one, I believe, you will find this informative and interesting too.

Lets start with the informative part:

Over last few years Airoli has been in a state of urbanisation. Once the Airoli-Diva Gaon, a largest village in the area, is now a flamingo sanctuary, a prominent IT hub, boasting of soaring skyscrapers, many infrastructure and residential projects and massive bridges.

Criss crossing right through the heart of Airoli is the Airoli-Katai Freeway Project (The PROJECT) connecting Mumbai to Navi Mumbai to Kalyan-Dombivili. Thus, Airoli has become the crucial connector between these three large cities.

This PROJECT is helmed by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and comprises of three phases.

         Phase 1- Thane Belapur highway to Mumbra Parsik tunnel

         Phase 2 - Mulund-Airoli bridge-Navi Mumbai to Thane-Belapur Rd.

(Of concern to Airoli Parishners, read on to understand, Why?)

         Phase 3 - Mumbra-Thane to Katai Naka - Kalyan-Dombivili suburbs.

The Phase 2 construction work is awarded to J Kumar Contractors. The Phase 2, commences from Mulund-Airoli Bridge, moves along the Burns hospital and passes right in front of the Sector 18- Christian cemetery and the other burial grounds, heading along Sector-4 Fire brigade station, crossing the railway tracks and touching the Thane Belapur highway.

What other Burial grounds???

Yes, there are 3 other burial grounds co-located with the Christian cemetery

1. Christian Cemetery

2. Muslims Kabrastan

3. Protestants Cemetery

4. Lingayat community burial ground

Did you know, the Christian cemetery alone serves for seven congregations

         3 from Airoli

         3 from Thane

         1 from Mulund

All these burial grounds have a common access road. Further, at the entry point of this access road is a Bharat gas cylinder warehouse followed by a heavy garbage truck repair station.

That was informative wasn’t it, let get on

Area of concern, what happened?

The Phase 2 construction work in the section opposite the burial grounds was completed by mid September 2024. However, as this road is not a hindrance to regular traffic, the J Kumar contractors had started using this road as dumping ground for heavy bridge material and debris from construction work.

Situation worsened with extended 2024 monsoons. By September end the road had become non-existent, non motorable and even non walkable. (Hats off to Mr. Augustine who walked through this muck path everyday as part of his cemetery custodian duties). As the place had become secluded, college bunking couples, druggys and anti-social elements,  had made this area a den. Give your imaginations wings!

What happened next?

Our Parishioner Mr. Oswald Luis (Ozzy) who is a regular to visit the cemetery to pay homage to his loved one was irritated with the filth lying around. He shared his thought with me, of taking up an initiative to get this access road done and get rid of this menace, and that's how, I jumped right in, afterall I had to. Why complain about the government (in this case the church) for not doing anything, unless we fight our own battles right!.

Shocker!!

On enquiring from ward offices, onsite JK engineers, we were informed that the road repair work would be taken up by NMMC post completion of the project post October 2025 after moving necessary tenders. The Engineer further added that, they are responsible for bridge building and not the upkeep of the roads. Imagine wading through the same debris and muck for another year!!.

What did we do?

A roadmap was made to approach the Ward office, NMMC, MMRDA, politicians, print and social media and radio channels if required.

With a Go-ahead from Fr. Samuel Ribeiro, we wrote to Airoli Ward office by end of September 2024 and to our shock encountered our first hurdle. The Ward Officer blatantly refused to take up the ownership stating that the project is under the purview of State Government and local body was not responsible for maintenance of the road.

Setting the ball in motion

A written complaint was filed in mid October 2024, addressed to NMMC Commissioner, Project In-charge MMRDA head office at Bandra with cc to ruling party MLA explaining the inconvenience faced by the communities with pictures of the road. (Ref. Before images).

To our delight within a week the MMRDA project head took stock of the on-ground situation and agreed to get the road repaired by December 31, 2024.

Meanwhile, to add pressure, the heads of all the other burial grounds were approached and a 'All Faith Burial Ground Committee' was formed with Fr. Samuel Ribeiro as the Chair person.

While we were ambitious to get this task rolled out the election code of conduct for the assembly elections scheduled in mid November 2024 stalled our plans.

Not the ones to give up we decided to take advantage of the elections campaigns, and gathered members of NMMC administrative offices, representative of other burial grounds and few STCJ parishioners and reached the local politician  Mr. Sanjeev Naik's office in Airoli. Mr. Naik gave a patient hearing and immediately contacted the Project head of MMRDA and Ward offices in our presence.

This action set the ball rolling by last week of December, the debris and the heavy bridge material started clearing out, the mud road was levelled with concrete gravel stones and road rollers. By first week of January 2025, the access road started looking like a road again. But then the Road Tarring was still pending and yet again things went into a Pause mode.

Timeline breach in such cases is expected but the extended delay would mean the levelled road would be damaged yet again. Thanks to the daily movement of heavy garbage trucks and gas cylinder warehouse vehicles. All the hard work would have come to a zilch. Ozzy and I were loosing patience, so we approached the J Kumar temporary onsite office at Sector 10 by last week of Jan. We were informed that the Tarring machine was not being released due to some payment related issue and rest of the discussion was ...beep beep. But this meeting did have an impact, the water curing frequency and the road roller activity increased so as to the levelled road is not damaged.

Two weeks into February 2025 and the LAST MILE was still waiting to be tarred. Yet again a complaint was raised to the MMRDA office with a copy to all the concerned authorities stating the chronological events. This lead to clearance of last pieces of materials a final touch, temporary road closure and…

Achievement:

1st week of March 2025 - Viola!! Our efforts have finally taken shape and form. 

From a non-motorable, make shift road, to getting a permanent tarred road from a MMRDA contractors who are not even accountable for such delivery is a feat in itself. This is a big victory for the STCJ-Airoli parishioners and we take this opportunity to congratulate each and everyone.

The last mile or should I say the road to FINAL DESTINATION is paved

-Joseph Cardoza