Aarey Car Shed

Friends, my today’s blog is concerning Mumbai city, and I write this blog just for showing high headedness of some politicians, and activists, and how they delay some infra projects. In the year 2019, I had written about the issue mentioned below in one of my blogs. These types of things might be happenings in other states also.

A few days back new government took an oath in Maharashtra with Eknath Shinde (Leader of Shiv Sena Rebel group) as Chief Minister & Devendra Phadnavis (leader of BJP legislative party in Maharashtra) as Deputy Chief Minister. One of the first decisions by this government was to restore the Metro Line 3 car shed in the Aarey area( part of this area come under the green area). The shed at Aarey was the bone of contention between the constituent of the earlier government (2014-2019) ie BJP and Shiv Sena. While the BJP was in favour of a car shed to be at Aarey and had obtained all Municipal and government permissions, Shiv Sena was opposing the same. There were many court cases with the involvement of the Green Panel and the other activists, and the matter went up to Supreme Court.

Before this, the government term was over in November 2019, the SC order was already there for continuing of construction of this car shed in the Aarey area. But when Shiv Sena came to power with the support of Congress & NCP, one of their government’s first orders was to withdraw the government’s permission for a car shed in Aarey.

Now what happened on this issue earlier:

1 As there was no stay on construction by any court, by October 2019 hundreds of trees were cut in the proposed Metro car shed site. On 7^th October cutting of more trees was suspended as SC imposed a stay on further tree cutting, but construction of the Metro car shed was allowed and SC did not give a stay order for stopping of construction. This interim order of tree cutting was valid till 15^th November 2019, the date of the next hearing. Before this order approx 2500 trees were cut out of 2800 trees, for the project. The SC had refused to declare this area as forest earlier.

2 Then in November 2019, after the State assembly elections, there was a change of government.

3 Although there was no stay order by the SC, still the new government (now known as MVA Government) did not allow further construction of the car shed.

4 In December 2019, the MVA government announced that the Metro 3 car shed will be shifted to Kanjur Marg ( which is at a distance of about 8 to 10 Kms from the present site).

5 But this Kanjur Marg land was under litigation, and the case was in the High Court (HC). There was three land parcel in that plot, and the claimants of these parcels were a Private Party, State Government, and Central Government (as the part of this land was under Salt Pan Area and Salt Pan Area is owned by Central Government).

6 State Government tried to acquire this land, but they could not succeed. But in the meantime, all preparation for a design change and cost escalation was made ready by the Metro team.

7 By the end of December 2020, the MVA government realized that they may not get the Kanjur Marg plot in near future, and hence they started searching for alternate plots, and one such piece of land was located at Pathan Wadi in Goregaon area of Mumbai ( about 5 Km from Aarey site). This site also had some issues, which were needed to be resolved.

8 But before the MVA government could make any concrete decision, it fell and a new government came into power, as mentioned earlier.

9 So for more than two and half years the Metro 3 project could not progress properly, as there was no clarity on the car shed site.

Now, as the present government has announced that the car shed will be at Aarey, the agitation by the activists has already started against this move.

The SC had earlier been observed in June 2019. That “the Metro is important” in congested Mumbai, and had dismissed an appeal against the National Green  Tribunal order to exclude 407 acres in the green Aarey as an Ecologically sensitive zone ( the car shed also came in this 407 acres).

In my opinion, when all the courts including the SC had no objection to this car shed in Aarey, it was only the high headedness of Shiv Sena leaders, and some activists & NGOs, which hampered the progress of this Metro 3 project. As per the latest estimates, the cost of the project which was earlier estimated at around Rs 22,000 Cr had already gone up by Rs 10,000 Cr. So this high headedness is going to cost at least Rs 10,000 Cr more to the exchequer, which may go up more. I envisage one more thing, some NGO/activist might again to do the SC for stopping this car shed in Aarey.

Let us wait and watch for, what happens next on this issue.

Waiting for your views on this blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

4^th July 2022.