Environment Clearance in Bandra-Kurla Complex, Mumbai.

Buildings in BKC often exceed the 1,50,000 sq m of built-up area at which the EIA Notification stops treating a project as a single building under item 8(a) and appraises it under 8(b), alongside townships. That shift changes the file: a fuller baseline, a traffic and parking study, and closer questions on water balance and sewage. We draw up the area statement by SEIAA's own counting (basements, podiums and service floors all in) while drawings can still change, so the project goes into the correct schedule at the first attempt.

The Bandra-Kurla Complex was laid out by MMRDA on low, marshy ground between the Mithi River and Mahim Creek, and it still sits with water on two sides. Over four decades it has filled with bank headquarters, the stock exchange, consulates, a convention centre and hotels, set on wide plots with podium parking below. Few people live here; tens of thousands arrive each weekday by road, suburban rail and now the metro. Underground works for the high-speed rail terminus and fresh towers rising on the last vacant plots keep parts of the district under construction. MMRDA, not the municipal corporation, plans it.