MUMBAI, May 21 -- Thirteen years after it was conceptualised, a cycling track along the Irla nullah in Juhu is yet to take off fully. Envisaged as a pilot project to be replicated all over the city, initial work on the 1.2-km track running through Juhu between Juhu Club Millenium and PVR Cinemas, began in 2015. Meant to be financed by the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) funds of then parliamentarian Javed Akhtar, the project was suspended during the Covid-19 lockdown. The renowned lyricist had committed Rs.25 crore for it, including beautification, lighting, and development of the nullah which flows along the Juhu Gulmohar Scheme. While the initial funding of Rs 16 crore did come through, the remaining Rs.9 crore could not be disbursed during the pandemic when Akhtar's MPLAD fund had to be entirely diverted to the PM CARES fund. "Since then, the project has been grounded," said architect Samarth Das from the Gulmohar Area Societies Welfare Group. Now that elected representatives are back in the BMC, the cycling track is back in focus. Mayor Ritu Tawde visited this stretch of the Irla nallah on May 14 during her routine check of pre-monsoon clean-ups of the city's various drains. "The mayor asked us to raise the retaining wall along the nullahs for the safety of cyclists," Bhagyashree Kapase, deputy municipal commissioner (Zone 4) told HT. "We will submit a proposal to the storm water drains department for this." Local corporator Dipak Kotekar said that the project would be a comprehensive one where attention would also be paid to finer details like planting vegetation that would mitigate the odour emanating from the drains. "The beautification will also light up the place after dark, discouraging drug addicts from hanging out there," he said. "When the Chitale Committee recommended that six metres on either side of the drains be maintained as service roads for convenient cleaning of the drains, we recommended that this space be developed as a cycling and jogging track," Das said. "We told officials that since these areas would only be accessed by maintenance vehicles around three to four times a year, the space could be made accessible to the public for the remaining days." The architect added that apart from restoring water bodies and integrating public movement with the city's water bodies, the concept offered potential for scalability. However, the chances of replicating the cycle track are remote even within the seven km of Irla that runs through the neighbouring ward. "This is because on one side of the Irla nullah, the land is owned by a private party while on the other there are huge slum localities. In fact, even cleaning the drains is a challenge here; there are patches where machines cannot enter and the drain has to be cleaned manually," said corporator Aneesh Makwaaney....