About Ghatkopar

Ghatkopar (Marathi: घाटकोपर) 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. Ghatkopar was a quaint village in 1920’s and 30’s. It came under Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. It was not a part of Mumbai. Mumbai's limits were up to Sion only and Ghatkopar came under district Mumbai Suburban. Like all small community centers, Ghatkopar also had just one principal road connecting it to Mumbai on the South-side and Thane in the north i.e.; Agra road. It was surrounded by creeks and hills. There are two popularly known theories for the name Ghatkopar: It derived its name from the fact that it was the Kopara (Marathi for "Corner") of Western Ghats - Ghat-kopra.[2] It derived its name from the fact that there were many Ghats (Marathi for "Small Hills"), small river near the Eastern Express Highway where a lot of salt pans were there near Ghatkopar, so when people use to direct the way to reach these places they use to call it. Gram deiwait of Chembur is Ghatoba, his temple is opposite to Glass factory currently opposite to shopper stop in the premises of petrol pump. The Name Ghatkoper is dervred in Marathi is ( घाटोबाचा कोपरा ) corner of Ghatoba temple. The native of chemburities (People stay in Gaothan most of them are chaukalshi/Pachkalshi, Phatare prahu ..... etc... )worship Ghatoba on ospecian occasion. Ghatkopar was inhabited mainly by Marathi people. But Then Migrants who came from Gujarat to Mumbai in need of good and healthy climatic conditions of the sanatoriums. Population was sparse and everyone knew each other. It was a close knit family. The streets were named after some of the renowned residents of the area like Navrojee lane named after Navrojee Sheth - a Parsee, Cama lane comes from Lady Cama Bai, Khot lane from people who ploughed and looked after farming activities of the place, Hingwala lane from a family that dealt in Asafoetida business, Khokhani lane from a family of jewelers and whose descendants still reside there, Khetani chowk named after Durlabhji Keshavji Khetani a renowned industrialist and philanthropist whose descendants still live in Ghatkopar. The streets were without electric lights, and were lit with petromax lights which was lit by a man coming in every evening to light them up in every street. Roads were metal roads raised in the middle so that the rain water could slope down into the gutters and did not accumulate on the roads. Roads were sprinkled with water by the vans of municipality twice in the mornings and evenings. By 1916, Ghatkopar had developed sufficiently that a municipal council for Ghatkopar-Kirol was set up. The administration was in charge of a Collector with the "Suburban District". In 1945, Ghatkopar was absorbed into Greater Mumbai.