MUMBAI, July 20 -- A residents' group has urged the BMC to repossess a portion of K C Marg in Bandra Reclamation-allegedly illegally occupied by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC)-before it completes ongoing sewerage and cement concrete road works. The residents say that failing to do so could permanently compromise the road's planned width. In its June 30 representation, the Bandra Reclamation Area Volunteers Organisation (BRAVO) pointed out that the road was unable to be developed as envisaged in the original layout plan on account of MSRDC establishing its office on a substantial portion of it and not vacating despite repeated requests over the years. "It is truly astounding that not hawkers, not slums, but a government organisation has illegally occupied a public road," the trust said in its representation. According to BRAVO, the original layout prepared by the then Bombay Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) in 1970 envisaged K C Marg as a 36.6-metre- wide road stretching from the Lal Mati slum area in the east to the BMC pumping station in the west. When MHADA developed seven high-income group residential buildings in the area between 1986 and 1988, it laid only about 18.3 metres of the proposed road width. The BMC subsequently constructed the adjoining footpath and surface drain, but the remaining portion, the trust said, continues to be occupied by MSRDC. The issue has now assumed urgency, as the BMC's sewerage department has begun laying underground sewer lines along K C Marg to connect to the new sewage treatment plant while the roads department is simultaneously concreting the road. BRAVO has demanded that the BMC reclaim the allegedly occupied land and restore the road to its full sanctioned width before undertaking road concretisation, arguing that in the absence of this, not only will the road remain permanently narrow but any future widening exercise would be significantly more difficult and expensive. BRAVO trustee Neela Shinde alleged that the disputed land was never meant to house the MSRDC office. "The wall is being built after the removal of huts by the court order," she said. "Today the MSRDC office is situated inside the wall and the office used this wall for many years till they built their own wall to show it is their property by grabbing the land meant for the 36-metre road." Shinde further claimed that the boundary wall had been erected solely to prevent fresh encroachments after a court-directed demolition drive. "The wall was built by the high court order to protect the area from slum dwellers," she said. "MSRDC, at that point, did not have an office there. Much later, it constructed a makeshift office inside the boundary wall and grabbed the land where the 36-metre road was supposed to be built. The government conveniently did not work on the plan to make the road 36 metres. And MSRDC conveniently grabbed the land by claiming that the boundary wall was its property." BRAVO has urged the BMC to immediately take cognisance of the issue, recover the allegedly occupied section of K C Marg from MSRDC and ensure that the road is restored to its planned width before the ongoing infrastructure works are completed. Calls and messages to MSRDC officials went unanswered....