Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, commonly known by its abbreviation LBS Marg, is a 21 km long, major arterial road connecting the neighbouring city of

Thane Thane (; also known as Thana, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city in Maharashtra, India. It is situated in the north-eastern portion of the Salsette Island. Thane city is entirely within Thane taluka, one of the seven taluk ...

with

Sion Sion may refer to * an alternative transliteration of Zion People * Sion (name) or Siôn, a Welsh and other given name and surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Shion or Sion, a Japanese given name Pl ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. It passes through heavily populated areas of the Eastern Suburbs in Mumbai and is heavily congested. Approximately, 3 lakh vehicles use this road daily. The road is named after

Lal Bahadur Shastri Lal Bahadur Shastri (; 2 October 1904 – 11 January 1966) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 2nd Prime Minister of India from 1964 to 1966 and 6th Home Minister of India from 1961 to 1963. He promoted the White Re ...

, the second

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Route description

LBS Marg begins at Thane, extending from the Old Agra Road and the

Ghodbunder Road Maharastra State Highway 42, commonly referred to as Ghodbunder Road or G.B. Road, runs entirely through the district of Thane. It is one of the major roads leading out of Thane city and connects to the Eastern Express Highway coming from south ...

. It intersects the

Eastern Express Highway The Eastern Express Highway, abbreviated to EEH, is a city express highway serving the cities of Mumbai and Thane. It is one of the busiest and most important roads in the Mumbai Metropolitan Area and is a part of the National Highway 48. It ...

(EEH) at Marathon Chowk. When travelling between Mumbai and Thane, commuters have to pay a toll. The toll gate (called ''naaka'' in Marathi) is called ''Teen Hath Naaka''. LBS Marg then passes through all the eastern suburbs, from

Mulund Mulund (Pronunciation: uluɳɖ is a suburb in the north-east of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is also a railway station on the Central Railway line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway. It is also the first railway station of Mumbai Suburban dis ...

till Sion, where it joins with the EEH near the Sion Flyover. Both LBS Marg and the EEH pass through Thane and the Eastern Suburbs but they pass to the west and east of the Central Line respectively. LBS Marg has only 4 lanes. However, only 2 lanes are in use now due to ongoing metro work. It passes through residential and commercial areas making it more congested and encroached upon. On the other hand, EEH is wide, well-maintained and smooth. It goes through an uninhabited area where development is prohibited. LBS Marg also offers connectivity to the Western Suburbs when it intersects the Andheri – Ghatkopar Link Road and the JVLR. The road also intersects the BKC Road at Kurla providing connectivity to the Bandra Kurla Complex, and onward to Bandra. It also offers connectivity to the Harbour Suburbs when it intersects the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road (GMLR). LBS Marg is connected to Kalina from Kurla via a 6m bridge over the

Mithi river The Mithi River (Pronunciation: iʈʰiː is a river on Salsette Island, the island of the city of Mumbai, India. It is a confluence of tail-water discharges of the Powai and Vihar lakes. The river is seasonal and rises during the monsoons ...

. The Mumbai Metro Line 4, which will pass through LBS, is under construction.

Planning

The

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC; IAST: ), also known as the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), is the governing civic body of Mumbai, the capital city of Maharashtra. It is India's richest municipal corporation. The ...

(BMC) has had plans to widen LBS Marg since 1970. The BMC decided to revitalize and finance the project in 2012. The work will require the demolition of 2000 buildings, 80 per cent of which are commercial properties. BMC estimates the cost of acquiring properties for demolition to be . The plan was to widen LBS Marg to 6 lanes (a width of 120 feet) from 4 lanes (60–80 feet width). However, with metro construction work going on from the stretch from Thane to Ghatkopar, the width of the road has actually reduced in places to just 12 feet on either side.

Current status

The LBS Road is known for heavy encroachment and almost nil enforcement of traffic and civic rules or town planning guidelines. It is common to see vehicles encroaching footpaths, wrong-side driving by all types of vehicles including heavy goods vehicles and jaywalking in the absence of pedestrian crossings. The ongoing Metro construction work on the central median has resulted in the road width reducing to just 12 feet in certain pockets, with no footpaths for pedestrian movement. As a result, the vehicular speeds on the road have fallen to an average of 3 km/h (1.8 mph) during peak hours. In addition, the road has the highest number of flood-prone spots in the Eastern suburbs, with yearly flooding a common phenomenon.

Real Estate

Conversion from primarily an industrial region to a mixed-use area began in the 2000s. LBS Marg has several malls, apartment complexes and corporate offices along it. Some of Mumbai's most prominent malls – R-Mall (Mulund), Neptune Magnet Mall ( Bhandup),

R City Mall R City Mall is a shopping mall located in Ghatkopar West, Mumbai. The mall spreads across 1.2 million square feet with the capacity to house over 350 stores. The mall has over 194 shopping stores, over 66 food outlets, 10 entertainment areas, ...

(

Ghatkopar Ghatkopar (Pronunciation: �ʱaːʈkopəɾ is a suburb in eastern Mumbai. The area is served by the railway station on the Central Line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway and the metro station on Line 1 of the Mumbai Metro. History Ghatkopar in ...

) and Phoenix Marketcity ( Kurla) – are located on LBS Marg. Godrej and Boyce IT Park, located in

Vikhroli Vikhroli (Marathi pronunciation: �ikʰɾoɭiː is a suburb of Mumbai located on the northeastern side of the city. The suburb has a railway station by the name Vikhroli on the Central Railway line. It is also home to one of the largest mang ...

, houses the offices of several IT firms. Corporates like Accenture,

Capgemini Capgemini SE is a multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company, headquartered in Paris, France. History Capgemini was founded by Serge Kampf in 1967 as an enterprise management and data processing company. The comp ...

TCS TCS may refer to: Organisations * Tata Consultancy Services, an IT company headquartered in India * Taxpayers for Common Sense, a US nonpartisan federal budget watchdog organization * TCS Courier, a Pakistani courier service * Touring Club Suisse ...

Wipro Wipro Limited (formerly, Western India Palm Refined Oils Limited) is an Indian multinational corporation that provides information technology, consulting and business process services. Thierry Delaporte is serving as CEO and managing directo ...

, WNS Spectramind,

ICICI Prudential ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited is a life insurance company in India. Established as a joint venture between ICICI Bank Limited and Prudential Corporation Holdings Limited, ICICI Prudential Life is engaged in life insurance and ...

, HCC, Colgate-Palmolive and

Cipla Cipla Limited (stylized as Cipla) is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company, headquartered in Mumbai. Cipla primarily develops medicines to treat respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, depression and many oth ...

have offices on LBS Marg. Runwal Forests in Kanjurgmarg, Godrej Park Site and Raj Legacy in Vikhroli, Kalpataru Aura and The Address in Ghatkopar, and HDIL's Dreams and Whispering Towers in Bhandup are some notable residential complexes on LBS Marg. Some manufacturing facilities continue to exist on or near LBS Road, notably Johnson & Johnson (Mulund), Ceat Tyres, Asian Paints and ShangriLa Biscuits (Bhandup), Jai Hind Oil Mills (Kanjurmarg), Everest Spices and Godrej Industries (Vikhroli).

References

{{coord missing, Maharashtra Roads in Mumbai Memorials to Lal Bahadur Shastri