Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) year-long project of restoring 16 heritage milestones in Mumbai is complete. Of these 16, 11 were present in their original location, but were dilapidated, broken, and neglected.
Five others were entirely missing, and BMC reinstated black basalt milestones in their location to commemorate the original milestones. All 16 of these were listed in the heritage booklet of the civic body. These milestones are approximately 200-years-old, and may have come up in the 1820s, according to information from BMC, and were installed to mark the distance from St Thomas Cathedral in Kalaghoda, which was the zero-milestone marker.
At the time, the main modes of commute were horse-pulled carriages and by foot, and the milestones were distance markers for these commuters.
The project included restoring the original milestone, installing cobblestone and granite around it, and installing an information plaque along with a QR code on each milestone. The QR codes on each of the milestones have helped the civic body to tie them to the heritage circuit. Tourists who scan the QR codes are taken to an online page with information about the milestone, and the distance from the remaining milestones. In addition to that, tourists can also see a map of the routes to view other milestones. These milestones are originally 3-4 feet in height but over the years, got buried in layers of cement and concrete.
The project was initiated by BMC’s heritage cell in mid-2020, which appointed Vaastu Vidhaan Projects as the heritage conservation architect for the project. Rahul Chemburkar, who is a heritage conservation architect and founder partner if Vaastu Vidhaan Projects said, “The heritage route we are trying to draw, it can be of interest to a citizen, an explorer, a historian, or a tourist. Through the restoration process, we have given them all a uniform identity, and tried to depict the era they first came up in.”
The civic body is still brainstorming ways to commemorate the zero-milestone marker at St Thomas Cathedra. A senior civic official said, “The milestone there never existed. The Cathedral itself was a marker. There was debate internally about whether to install a ‘dummy’ milestone in this location. However, we have ruled out this option. We will likely install an information plaque in this place, commemorating the marker.”
Numbers on the milestones range from one to nine, and they span toward the North part of the city. Sanjay Sawant, who heads BMC’s heritage cell said, “We see the milestones on two routes between South Mumbai and Northward. One via Kalbadevi to Sion, and one via Kalbadevi to Mahim. There are markers up to nine miles on each of these routes.”
As a second part of this restoration project, BMC plans to trace suspected milestones, and commemorate the locations they may have existed in. However, since this is a work in progress, the idea is still evolving, Chemburkar said. Only these two routes mentioned above have been documented and mapped. Chemburkar said, “There may have been other routes at the time which do not exist anymore. The hypothesis can lead us to new milestones.”
“We will take help of oral history, archives, photographs, and old books from libraries across the city, to investigate if more milestones could have existed that we do not know of at all anymore. For example, a possible third route from the Haji Ali area may have existed, but we cannot be sure,” Sawant said.
Restoring the existing milestones also involved research and investigation on the part of the architects and the civic body. Some milestones were moved from their original location. For example, Milestone ‘V’ was preserved by the Railway authorities at Badhawar Park, after they discovered it in their premises. BMC coordinated with Railway authorities and moved this to its location in Parel. Chemburkar said, “In some cases where milestones are missing, we had to refer to oral history, or gauge the approximate location it could have been in many years ago, and install it in the area.