Mumbai's BDD chawls named after Rajiv Gandhi, Balasaheb Thackeray and Sharad Pawar

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The Maharashtra government on Thursday said it has renamed the century-old clusters of eyesore matchbox tenements, commonly known as 'British Development Department' (BDD) chawls, after three prominent leaders.

While the BDD Chawl in Worli has been named after the Shiv Sena founder as 'Balasaheb Thackeray Nagar', the cluster on N.M. Joshi Marg shall be henceforth known as 'Rajiv Gandhi Nagar', and the third one in Naigaon has been rechristened as 'Sharad Pawar Nagar' after the Nationalist Congress President supremo, said Housing Minister Jitendra Awhad.

The three major erstwhile BDD chawls complexes - where once Mahatma Gandhi spent a night among the Mehtar Samaj (sweepers) in 1937 - are currently undergoing what is billed as Asia's biggest redevelopment project worth Rs 20,000 crore, started in August 2021.

Built between 1921-1924, there are a total of 207 ground-plus-three-storey buildings, each with identical 160-sq. feet 'face-to-face' chawls', a 20-feet wide centre passage, common water supply, bathing and toilet areas, housing around 17,000 families and spread across 93 acres of the most prime chunks of land in south Mumbai.

Dr. Awhad said that the work on the complexes is progressing well and all the residents shall get their new homes over the next five years in the upcoming 32 swank towers with 500-sq.feet 2-BHK ultra-modern flats and other top amenities, bringing a sea-change to their lives.

Being built by Tatas, L&T and Shapoorji Pallonji for different projects, the well-planned new complexes will have 40-storied and 22-floor tall towers with floors for parking, wide roads, at least 4 four schools, welfare centres, mini-hospitals, gardens, playgrounds, markets and shopping plazas.

Besides Mahatma Gandhi, a regular visitor there was the Chief Architect of Indian Constitution, Bharat Ratna Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who had planted a 'Peepal' sapling which has now bloomed into a gigantic shady tree.

Months before his assassination (May 1991), the former Prime Minister and Bharat Ratna Rajiv Gandhi - then the Leader of Opposition - was delayed for an evening rally in the Gandhi Maidan here, but finally turned up early the next morning around 3.30 a.m., but the venue was full of enthusiastic, though groggy-eyed people still waiting to hear him out!

The other prominent 'products' of BDD Chawls include the founder of Republican Party of India and ex-Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar (1973-1977) Dr. R. D. Bhandare, legendary test cricketer Ramnath Parker, Ranji Trophy player Sanjay Patil, prominent Dalit activists, former Mumbai Mayor Nandu Satam (1988-199), litterateurs like Bhausaheb Adsul, Vishwasrao Bhosale, 'Samrat' Editor Babban Kamble, et al.

At the Worli BDD Chawl Nos. 89 to 92, inhabited by many Indian Railway employees, a train engine used to chug upto the buildings adjacent to the railway lines, pick up the staffers in the morning and drop them back in the evening!

A popular shooting locale for scores of Bollywood, Marathi films and tele-serials, there are two dedicated "BDD Chawl sets" in Raigad and Thane, and the chawl culture has been immortalised in many essays, documentaries, Marathi, Hindi and English books.

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