Replicas of Shivaji’s forts as tribute this budget

This railway budget will pay the tallest tribute to legendary Maratha warrior, Shivaji Raje Bhosle aka Shivaji Maharaj, with plans to build replicas of seven forts captured by him between CST platform number 8 and the proposed Harbour line station at P D’Mello Road.

It’s been a while since the plan to shift Harbour line CST platform to an elevated line from Dockyard to P. D’Mello Road was proposed. However, the Railway has decided to fuse the plan with the programme for station development. The plan has been kept under wraps for nearly a month, even after JJ School of Architecture submitted the proposal to Central Railway (CR) General Manager, Sunil Kumar Sood, on January 16. “The JJ School Architecture department had submitted the proposal to CR almost a month ago. The CR then showed it to Union Railway Minister and there were talks about including it in the railway budget for 2016-17,” said a CR official on condition of anonymity.

The central fort will be Shivneri surrounded by Shivaji Maharaj’s other conquests like Raigad, Panhala, Sinhgad, Bhulkot and Janjira. The presentation made to Mr Sood (a copy of which is with this newspaper) said that there will be lights and sound to narrate the history of these forts and the battles fought to conquer them. The Shivneri replica will have a 3,000 seating capacity and will double as a space to house nearly 1,200 commuters who might be stranded at CST or other CR stations.

The entire structure will be built on approximately 100x600 to 700 yards and the six forts surrounding Shivneri will be commercially exploited. Again, since the area falls under the heritage zone, it cannot have a height of over 27 metre and the size of the forts themselves will be 30x30 metre or 40x40 metre with airshafts of 10x10 metre inside them. Other attractions include 7D holographs of historically significant events with the façade proposed to be illuminated by built-in LED lights.

J.J. School of Architecture Dean, Rajiv Mishra, said, “ We have made a proposal to Mr Sood but I am not at liberty to give you the details as we are bound by a contract we have signed with the Indian Railways.”