Vikhroli Koparkhairane Link Road

The Kanjurmarg Salt Pan Dispute: Decades of Unresolved Land Ownership

The most important thing to understand about this corridor is that it runs directly through Kanjurmarg, an area sitting at the centre of one of Mumbai's longest-running land ownership fights. Since the 1980s, the Central and Maharashtra state governments have disputed ownership of roughly 5,500 acres of salt pan land spanning the eastern suburbs, including Kanjurmarg, Bhandup, Nahur, and Mulund. This dispute became a live legal battle when the state allotted 102 acres of this same land to MMRDA for a separate Metro-3 car shed, prompting the Centre to challenge the transfer, and the Bombay High Court to stay construction while it heard the Centre's title claim.

The dumping ground itself has been separately litigated. An NGO's petition led the Bombay High Court to declare 119.91 hectares of the 141.77-hectare landfill a "protected forest," directly restricting what can be built there regardless of any transport project's own approvals. This is the same broader area the link road's original alignment had to route around, since an elevated structure could not be built over an active, rising garbage heap. Before transacting on any land near Kanjurmarg tied to this corridor's promised connectivity, verify title against both the Centre-State salt pan dispute and the forest-protection status separately, since either one can override a project's own environmental clearance.

What Growth Looks Like Near This Corridor

Once built, the link road would give Vikhroli and the surrounding eastern suburbs a direct route to Navi Mumbai and Pune-bound traffic, bypassing the currently used Vashi and Airoli-Mulund bridges.

Historical delays on this exact project are well documented: the link road was first proposed with an alignment through the Kanjurmarg dumping ground, stalled for over a year awaiting municipal approval, and had to be redesigned once officials determined the garbage heap's height made that route unworkable. Given the unresolved decades-old land ownership dispute in the same area, plus a separate court-enforced forest designation on part of the landfill, this is a corridor where the promised connectivity benefit and the underlying land's legal status are genuinely two different questions. Confirm both independently before treating proximity to the planned bridge as a straightforward value driver.