Charkop
Encyclopedia
Charkop is a municipality in the suburb of Kandivali(West),North Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

. It was originally intended as a housing project by MHADA
MHADA
Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority is an Indian organisation established in 1977. Since then, it has been engaged primarily in constructing and selling housing to low and middle income groups in urban and semi-urban areas. In Mumbai, it has constructed about 30,000 housing...

,but now covers residential areas and businesses.

History

Charkop's original name is 'Char Khop' which means place of 4 huts or small village with four houses.
Charkop originally was marshy land, drained by the MHADA organisation to provide low-cost housing to people. It was a project originally intended to provide society-based plots around 200 square feet (18.6 m²) to every owner. This ownership was established by having a lottery and allotting lottery numbers. The next step was to provide all necessary civil amenities, which MHADA has provided to full effect. The late 1990s and beyond has brought a drastic change in people's mindsets towards Charkop.In latter years,Mhada has begun to gradually free land for bungalows and buildings. The climate and ecology was another conscious consideration towards making this choice. Towards the year 2000, Charkop had established itself as a truly cosmopolitan area with its cleanliness and low population. The close proximity to both the railway stations of Kandivali and Borivali
Borivali
Borivali or Borivli a suburban area located in the north-west section of Mumbai island. Borivali is approximately from Mumbai Airport and from Churchgate Railway Station...

 have made it an attractive place to live in.Today's Charkop is clean, pollution-free and well connected.

Demographics

Charkop is predominantly Hindu, but there are also tiny sprinklings of Christians, Sikhs and Parsees and other communities such as Dalit Buddhists.Muslims live together in clusters, in the cosmopolitan area of Ganesh Nagar, which borders Malad. Most residents can be classified as lower middle-class or middle class. Professions are mainly of the service type and businesses are run in the Ganesh Nagar(Ganesh Chowk) area and the Charkop Industrial Estate. The majority of populace is Maharashtrian
Marathi people
The Marathi people or Maharashtrians are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, that inhabit the Maharashtra region and state of western India. Their language Marathi is part of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages...

, followed by Gujarati people
Gujarati people
Gujarati people , or Gujaratis are an ethnic group that is traditionally Gujarati-speaking and can trace their ancestry to the state of Gujarat in western India...

 and then others.

Recent bad developments

With the sprawling of new and sophisticated buildings, towers and complexes, many early settlers have begun to think about the negatives of development in Charkop. The public
Public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...

 transport system has drastically improved however, and there are hardly any areas in Charkop, which can be classified as remote. But the ecological destruction has continued to persist. About 2004, a lake in Sector-1 , Sahayadri Nagar was filled with sand to provide for a housing complex there. Another lake in Sector-2 was attempted to be filled, before the citizens of the area raised an alarm. But the worst example of congestion by people is at the Gorai
Gorai
Gorai is a village in the North-western part of Mumbai, India. Gorai is accessed more usually by a ferry crossing the Manori Creek which separates Gorai from the island of Salsette or otherwise by the overland route through Bhayander....

 bridge where the lake has been filled with faeces and rubbish and is a popular squatting ground. With such a lack of interest by the government and vested interests by realty builders, it remains to be seen whether Charkop will continue to remain ecologically beautiful and pollution free.
Sector 8 a relatively new addition to Charkop also faces environmental damage - constant dumping of debris and religious waste into the Mangroves will ultimately lead to Environmental hazards. While the residents are trying to combat this with plantation of trees all along sector 8 the BMC does not seem to be doing their bit.
Further the conditions of the roads on Sector 8 and 9 are deteriorating and many road accidents especially on 2 wheelers have occurred.

Landmarks

MTNL Telephone Exchange (Sector 8)

New Charkop Police Station (Sector 2)

Turzon Point (Sector 8)

Apna Bazar (Sector 5)

Lalit Bakery (Charkop Market)

Noble Chemists 24x7 (Charkop Market)

Sunrays Mall (Charkop Market)

Ekveera Vidyalaya (Sector 1)

Mother Teresa High School (Sector 1)

Indian Education Society School (Sector 2)

Bhagwati Restaurant (Charkop Market)

Charkop Depot (Sector 4)

Proposed developments

Metro connecting Charkop to Colaba
Colaba
Colaba is a part of the city of Mumbai, India, and also a Lok Sabha constituency. During Portuguese rule in the 16th century, the island was known as Candil...

 is next to follow, after Mumbai Metro One is complete.

MCGM has planned to create a bird sanctuary to preserve and exhibit the various types of birds that frequent the mangrove areas of Sector 8.

Nearest station

Kandivali
Kandivali
Kandivali, or Kandivli is the name of a suburb of Mumbai, India. It is also the name of the railway station in Kandivali suburb, on the Western Railway line of the Mumbai suburban railway.- History :...

 Station is approx 3.5 km away from Charkop

Borivali
Borivali
Borivali or Borivli a suburban area located in the north-west section of Mumbai island. Borivali is approximately from Mumbai Airport and from Churchgate Railway Station...

station is approx 4 km away
ST buses have started from Sector 8 to Nashik,Pune,Malvan
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