Chembur, a suburb in eastern Mumbai, from once being on the outskirts is now in the heart of the city. It is located north of Trombay and south of Kurla. During the years immediately after Independence, many camps for refugees from Pakistan were set up here. It was also a place where many people from south India settled down. Today this suburb is as cosmopolitan as any other in Mumbai.
Chembur is well connected to south Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and other suburbs too through the Eastern Express Highway. The suburban railway network is also easily accessible. It is also connected by the mono rail service between Chembur and Wadala which will go up to Jacob’s Circle in south Mumbai, on completion. Being close to both the Western and Eastern Express Highways, it is easier to commute to the business hubs such as the Bandra Kurla Complex and other central business districts, from here.
Chembur is one of the greenest suburbs of Mumbai. It is also the fastest growing suburb of central Mumbai. Some of the well known landmarks of this suburb are the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Golf Club, Dr Ambedkar Garden and the Diamond Garden.
One of the problems facing real estate development in this area is that there are no large parcels of land available. However, many of the old bungalows have given way to apartment complexes in areas near Chembur Naka. Many new project developments are coming up along the Jeejabhai Bhosle Marg, Eastern Expressway, Chembur-Govandi Road, Sion-Panvel Expressway and VN Purav Marg.
One of the major problems that the residents of Chembur have faced for some time has been the pollution from the dumping ground at Deonar. This is one gigantic dumping yard and waste rises to the height of an eighteen storied building. This burning of waste causes respiratory problems among many of the people living in the neigbhourhoods of Chembur, Govandi and Mankhurd.
The other problem in Chembur is that the highway to Pune cuts through the suburb so there is heavy traffic right through the day. Much like other older localities in other parts of India, the connecting roads as well as the internal roads in Chembur are narrow and badly maintained; this leads to a lot of traffic jams.
There are many good schools in Chembur: some of them like Our Lady of Perpetual Succor (OLPS), which is a boy’s school, and St Antony’s for girls are quite famous. There is no super specialty or big hospital in Chembur, so residents either go to nursing homes in the vicinity or to better known hospitals in South Mumbai.
The average price of an apartment in Chembur was INR 16,500 per sq ft in the second quarter of 2016. Research shows sales of homes in Mumbai picked up by the twelve month period ending in the third quarter of 2015. There has been over 25% increase in sales of homes over the corresponding period in the previous years. This is good news indeed for the housing sector in Mumbai which has reeled under the impact of unsold inventory and flagging sales.
The increase in sales of homes has been credited to the fact that many prospective buyers who were waiting for the prices to fall, took the opportunity of the prices remaining flat, to make their investment. In a manner of speaking, this phenomenon was a kind of price correction as the land and construction costs remained high.
Nina Varghese for IndiaProperty.com
Image: By Superfast1111 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons