Goregaon

Goregaon, pronounced as Goregam or Goregav (Marathi:गोरेगाव) is the name of a Mumbai suburban locality. It is a major railway station on the Mumbai suburban railway on the Western Railway (India) railway line.

Bracketed on either side of the railway line by the Western Express Highway and the Linking Road, it is primarily a middle-class residential neighbourhood. The famous cinema making spots such as Filmistan and Film City are located here.

Up to the late 1970s, the suburb was sparsely populated with the main residential localities springing up in Nagars (like Unnat Nagar, Motilal Nagar, Bangur Nagar, Shastri Nagar, Siddharth Nagar, Piramal Nagar) on the West and Wadis (like Pandurang wadi) and Jaiprakash Nagar on the East.

The Eastern boundary of the suburb was effectively the Western Express Highway after which the picturesque Aarey Milk Colony offered its forested charm to the region.

However, the housing boom of the 80s saw the locality spread its territory as well as increase its population density. On the East, newer areas such as Dindoshi, Gokuldham, Yashodham, Saibaba Complex, Film City Road, etc. and on the West, Bangur Nagar, Lokhandwala Complex (now considered a separate suburb) and Link Road were the development hubs. Despite the increase in population, rail and road infrastructure was the same and hence became stretched.

Besides the above, Goregaon (E) also is home to the recently developed area known as New Dindoshi consisting of the Nagari Nivara Parishad (popularly known as NNP), a housing scheme for the lower middle class. There are more than 30,000 people living at NNP distributed between two zones. These are one of the best housing schemes provided by government.

Despite this, the suburb still maintains its charm in the older pockets with shady trees lining the roads which are relatively well maintained.

What is now known as Goregaon Suburb is a conglomeration of Four Villages Pahadi, Goregaon, Aarey and Eksar. Goregaon got the Railway Station as early as in 1862. The suburb was one of the Four Railway Stations between Borivali and Grant Road. However, it was known as Pahadi. Name of the Railway Station was changed subsequently as people were getting confused in Pahadi and Paradi, a Railway Station in South Gujarat on BB&CI (now Western Railway). In fact even today on official records, one can see the name of tehasil as Pahadi Goregaon.

It is believed that the name of Village Goregaon come from the politically active Gore (pronounced Go-ray) family, who lived on the Western side of the suburb, literally meaning “Gore’s village” in Marathi.

The prime land under Mango and Guava Plantation owned by Topiwala Desai family was taken over by Maharashtra government and handed over to Housing Board Mumbai sometime in 1950’s.