Wednesday 14 March 2012

Recent development projects in Kalyan


Skywalks: To ease traffic around the station area, MMRDA has constructed a 1.4 km long Skywalk, at the cost of a whopping Rs.84 Cr, under the Station Area Traffic Improvement Scheme (SATIS), making it the third longest skywalk in Mumbai (approx. 1297 metres), after Borivali and Thane. Given the earlier traffic and geographical system, it has been the most challenging skywalk project so far, and is the most expensive skywalk in Mumbai. Another skywalk linking the East-West parts of Kalyan is now under development.

The JNNURM project is being implemented to improve water supply and sewage facilities in Kalyan by putting up pipelines under important highways. This has been done to avoid any situation similar to the Mumbai floods of 2006, which severely affected the suburb.

Proposed Developments

MMRDA has drawn up plans for a monorail link between Thane-Kalyan-New Mumbai over three year duration at the cost of Rs. 3000 Crores. The project is in the planning stage. Developments on revamping Kalyan Junction as another Railway Terminus are planned to ease rail transport in Mumbai. MMRDA has plans for a multi-modal bus rapid transport system (BRTS) and mass rapid transport system (MRTS) which will cover Kalyan as well.

A four-lane expressway will enable people to travel between Virar-Vasai-Diva-Bhiwandi-Kalyan-Panvel to Alibag in a matter of few hours. The four-lane expressway will have wide footpaths, subways, foot-over bridges and service roads linking the major towns on the route.

The project of developing roads in Kalyan is on at a full pace. A sum of Rs 300 crore is being spent on construction of roads, railway over-bridge, bridges, under-passes and subways. There are reports of MMRDA pondering over turning Kalyan-Dombivli as solar cities. Solar power and products may soon be welcomed. More malls, large fashion and retail outlets and convenience stores are being developed. Two monorail corridors from Kalyan are proposed by authorities, one 26 km long, linking Kalyan - Ulhasnagar - Dombivli and another, 30 km long, connecting Kalyan to Mahape. These projects are expected to be completed by soon. 

Kalyan International Airport near Kalyan-Nevali

As a result of the some objections being raised by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests on the current proposed location of the Navi Mumbai International Airport near Kopra Panvel area, because the construction of the airport would involve reclamation of low-lying areas in an ecologically fragile zone as well as destruction of several hectares of mangroves, other locations were being actively being considered, which includes the one off village Nevali near Kalyan-Ambernath 55 km away from the current airport in Mumbai. There exists an old and abandoned air-strip of World War II era and the Union Defence Ministry owns the 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) of land on which it is located. The proposal is now centred around those 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) of land. 

If the current location at Kopra Panvel does not go through, then the Kalyan-Newali location would be considered for a future Kalyan International Airport which would serve as third International airport for the Mumbai Metropolitan region. But, Minisstry of Forest & Environmental Affairs has given Green Signal to the Navi Mumbai International Airport, after modifications in Plan of Airport. Hence, the possibility of having third airport of Mumbai in Kalyan has ended. There have been talks of the utilisation of the 1500 acre land for recreational purposes, and proposals for the fourth international airport or a world class sports and parking complex have been on the rise recently.

With all these projects Kalyan is set to be another resourcefully, economically and socially developed part of Mumbai.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Kalyan- a part of the Greater Mumbai metropolitan agglomeration

Kalyan is a city in the part of the Konkan (or "Kokan") region included in Maharashtra state, and a major railway junction in the vicinity of Mumbai, India. The city has been combined with its neighbor township of Dombivli to form the City Corporation of Kalyan-Dombivli. It is considered a part of the Greater Mumbai metropolitan agglomeration, along with New Mumbai and the cities of Bhiwandi, Thane, Ulhasnagar,Ambarnath,Badlapur, Karjat and the Vasai-Virar region.

Geography of Kalyan

Kalyan city is located on the lower course of the Ulhas River with access to the Arabian Sea, via its two estuaries or creeks, the Thane Creek and the Vasai Creek. Kalyan is 48 km (30 mi) north-east of Mumbai. Overcrowding in Mumbai and incentives from the government to develop areas outside of Mumbai have attracted industrial business as well as industrial employees to Kalyan.

Kalyan was also considered at one time as one of the best places to live in the neighborhood of Mumbai, as it is far away from the pollution of the main city.

Kalyan Junction is a very important railway station for suburban travel as well as for long distance trains. The suburban or metropolitan railway passenger transport line coming in from Mumbai splits into two at Kalyan Junction, one heads south-east for Karjat and Khopoli towards Lonavla, Mahabaleshwar and Pune, the other heads north-east for Kasara towards Nashik.

On the eastern side of the city is a large industrial complex where electrical equipment, rayon, and dyes and other chemicals are manufactured. There are also a large number of textile-based cottage industries.

History


Kalyan was a port for more than two millennia until siltation and the rise of Mumbai eclipsed it and its sister ports, Sopara, Thane, Vasai, etc. The port was ruled by the Maurya and Gupta Empires of North India and later was part of a petty Konkan principality vassal to the Yadava Empire of Deogiri. Extensive ruins in Kalyan indicate the city's former magnificence.

During the Middle Ages, Pope John XX, headquartered at Avignon, sent a group of five missionaries to the Mongol Emperor at Khanbalik, modern Beijing in China, under the Dominican Fray Giordano or Jordanus. On their way, they picked up a novice, Demetrius, from West Asia and then travelled through South Asia, succoring the Nestorian Christians there, who were hard pressed by the Muslims. Giordano left his colleagues at Kalyan and travelled back north to Gujarat. During his absence, the Muslim governor and qazi of Thane summoned the missionaries and demanded submission to Islam; when they refused, they were murdered (1321). The local Nestorians collected their remains and buried them; Giordano, on his return, took them to Sopara and buried them there. The Muslim Arab sultan of Gujarat, when informed of this development, summoned his governor of Thane and the Qazi; the Qazi fled but the governor was executed for his actions that militated against international commerce. When a later missionary, Oderic of Pordenone ([2]), visited Thane in 1324-1325, he collected their remains and moved on to China.

The Martyrs of Thane were canonized by Pope Leo XIII and are Saints Thomas of Tolentino, James of Padua, Peter of Siena and Demetrius of Tiflis.

In the later Middle Ages, Kalyan was occupied by the Ahmednagar Sultanate, an indigenous dynasty founded by a man forcibly converted from a Hindu Brahmin family as a child, and then by the Bijapur Sultanate, an Indo-Turkish state in the Deccan in the 1500s, and later by the Mughals under the Emperor Shah Jahan, who fortified the city in the mid-1600s. It came under Portuguese sway for a brief time before being re-conquered by the Muslim allies of the Mughals, and was later conquered by the Marathas, who made it one of their strategic centers because it guarded the entrance to Mumbai and the western coast of India. Kashibai, wife of the Peshwa Bajirao was born in Kalyan. About eighty years after the Maratha conquest, the Maratha Empire was forced to cede it to the British and Kalyan became part of the Bombay Presidency, a British India province that became Bombay state after India's independence in 1947. In the Middle Ages, when kalyan was occupied by the Ahmednagar Sultanate, they gave name as Gulshanabad and in the time of Maratha it was changed to Kalyan.

Kaali Masjid : It was founded by Mughal emporer Akbar the great. It is located to on the bank of the lake called as "Kaala Talav".

Durgadi Fort : It is not known as to when the Durgadi fort was constructed. The wall of the fort along the top of the inner bank of the ditch, and, near the north end, had a gateway known as the Delhi or Killyacha Darwaja, which was entered by a path along the top of the north side of the town wall. Inside the fort there was a low belt of ground, about the same level, as the top of the ditch, with a shallow pond not far from the Delhi gate. The remains of the pond are still visible, in the north-west corner the fort rose in a small flat-topped mound about thirty feet high. On the top of the mound, on the west crest which overhangs and is about 100 feet above the river, is the prayer wall or idgah, sixty-four feet long, thirteen high and seven thick, which is now in a dilapidated condition. This doubtful wall is said to be of the old Durga temple wall and is thickly plastered. It is said that near the east crest of the mound there was a mosque, but no remains of it can be traced.
 
In and before July 1946 there was a large military transit camp near Kalyan.