Mumbai: Taking a leaf out of the Mumbai Coastal Road South, the civic administration is now planning a second helipad along the northern stretch of the project, with a proposed site at Charkop in Kandivli. Civic officials said the helipad for the Mumbai Coastal Road (North) will be developed on lines similar to the one planned in south Mumbai. The proposed location is a land parcel currently being used for tunnel construction and ancillary works at Charkop. Once the tunnelling work is completed, the same space will be repurposed to develop the helipad.Officials said approximately 5,000 square metres of land would be sufficient for the facility. The proposed helipad is expected to come up at the starting point of a planned tunnel connecting Charkop to Malad’s Mindspace business district. Preliminary checks, including the presence of high-tension wires in the vicinity, will be conducted before finalising the site. A BMC official said, “The civic body is also exploring the use of the helipad for emergency services, including air ambulances, which could enable faster connectivity to hospitals whether in the suburbs or even in south Mumbai.” In Feb this year, in a meeting with the civic commissioner, Borivli MLA Sanjay Upadhyay of the BJP had also demanded that a helipad be made along the Mumbai Coastal Road North. However, in case of the Mumbai Coastal Road South, a helipad plan was introduced much later, after the works on the road were nearing completion. It was in March 2025, when Deputy CM first mooted the plan for a helipad along the Worli temporary jetty made for the coastal road project opposite Worli Dairy. “There were two jetties, one near Amarsons Garden that was dismantled and another at Worli. The Worli jetty was not proposed to be dismantled as coastal police had sought some space for surveillance. It was then decided that this area was large enough to allow helicopter landing,” said a civic official. The alignment of the Coastal road-North project stretches from Versova to Bhayander and also includes an elevated GMLR connector from the Mindspace Malad Junction of the road. This will then connect the southern tip and western suburbs of Mumbai to Mulund and Thane.This project, traversing through different terrains like mangroves and creek areas, includes underground tunnels and bridges.
