Chaos thrives in Lamington Road

Minakshi Shetty

Situated in the busy streets of Mumbai is Lamington Road which was known for its wholesale and retail market in electronic goods once upon a time. Then the IT market also started here and today Lamington Road is the place to buy all IT products at the best bargain price in Mumbai.
But it seems that apart from the growth of IT segment, nothing much has changed including the infrastructure and modernity in the area.

“My office is situated in the building, which is almost 113 years old and it was supposed to go into rehabilitation long time ago. The building is so shaky that I am afraid that it can fall anytime. I think the shabby state of affairs here is the reason why there is a decrease in customer footprint,” said Mansi Ahuja of General Electronics.

Ahuja's fears are not unfounded since in August 2009, the front portion of a dilapidated five-storied building came crashing down due to unauthorized construction work, which was being carried out at that time. It was a 75 year old residential-cum-commercial building.
According to Bimal Zaveri of Hardtrack Computer, who has been operating from the same vicinity for over nine years, the place lacks basic facilities like parking and toilets. “I have observed that a lot of publicity is given to Nehru Place in Delhi, which is good but media should also try and focus on Lamington Road, which is important IT market in Mumbai. During Diwali, one will find lots of cultural programs taking place in and around Lokhandwala (situated in Andheri), which helps in attracting a lot of customer. Partners in Lamington Road should learn from this and involve themselves in similar activities in order to generate more business opportunities. In the past nine years even our shop, Hardtrack, is still the same. The only difference is that the shops around us have multiplied and the space has become more congested.”

According to him IT partners play a major role in Lamington Road now and there are around 40-50 retail outlets catering to the end customers and 300 suppliers in the market at present. The market is growing at a robust pace and Zaveri feels that Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) should play a major role in upgrading the place from a small market to a spacious and flourishing IT hub. “BMC should be approached by a complete body committee rather than a individual which will help in sharing clear thoughts on improving the market,” added Zaveri.

Sharing the same point of view on the same Dushyant Mehta from Mediaman, pointed out that Lamington was never supposed to be the IT hub of the city, but was considered as the full fledged electronic market. Subsequently customers also started flocking here for IT products and that is how the place turned into an IT hub. “I think the civic body, BMC, should consult a developer in order to turn this place into a systematic IT and telecom market. I have been to Shanghai and was really impressed by their theory of selling all brands under one roof , which according to me is the most convenient way to sell. I think we should turn the market into an 85 floor tower, so that people do not have to search or go to various places for buying one product. Lamington Road is actually a mixture of all the clutched and congested shops at one place. Sometimes it becomes difficult to accommodate more than four customers in the shop due to the inconvenient space. There is garbage stinking at some places, there is no place to stand, overall there is no buying or selling experience from some dealers in the Lamington Road.”

With Mumbai itself being the most congested city it seems to be difficult for Lamington Road to overcome this major issue faced by the channel partners. But still the channel partners hope to find a much spacious and convenient space for doing business in the near future.