In today’s blog I am writing about Mumbai’s burning topic, before I elaborate on this subject, would like to give a little back ground. There is an underground metro system being constructed in Mumbai, known as Mumbai Metro 3, which is going to cover the distance of approx 33 Kms from Colaba in South Mumbai to Seepz in Andheri East of Western suburbs. There have been umpteen controversies regarding this subject, and I have earlier written on that. To construct the shed near the last stop Seepz, for parking thee trains in the night and maintenance of the train the open area was needed and the land in Aarey milk Colony area was sought by Metro authorities. There was enough hue and cry earlier as Aarey is green area and no construction permitted there, green activist demanded other area should be allotted for this purpose. The matter went to court, green tribunal etc, and in the end it was decided that the shed should be permitted in Aarey area, and accordingly the designs were finalised and construction started.
Now after more than 2 years of the earlier permission, again the activists/NGOs have started save Aarey campaign to stop the metro authorities to chop more than 2000 trees. The matter has gone into court again. There are few facts which should be known by general public
- Activist says Aarey Milk Colony is a forest. Actually the Aarey land belongs to Dairy Development Department Govt of Maharashtra. National Green Tribunal (NGT:34 of 2015) and High Court (2766 of 2017) have examined and rejected this claim.
- Activist says metro 3 Car Shed will destroy Mumbai’s green Lung. The fact is this area is divided into 2- parts National Park (11,687 Hectres) and Aarey Milk Colony (1287 hectres), and car shed is going to use only 2.5% only (30 hectres). As per Metro authorities and tree census of 2017-18, there are 29.75 lakhs trees in Mumbai, and Aarey milk colony has 4.8 lakhs trees. Only 2646 trees will be impacted due to car shed, out of which 461 will be transplanted and 2185 will be cut, and against this 6 times more number of trees will be planted fresh.
- -Activist says there is wildlife in car shed area. Now as per the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) study report there is no wildlife habitat in that area, the location is actually surrounded by 3 major roads-JVLR, Marol Maroshi Road, Goregaon Powai road, which together carry more than lakh vehicles per day.
- Activist say No alternative sites were explored for car shed. As per MMRDA, at the Design stage Race Course, BKC, Kalina University area and Aarey were evaluated. At the Technical Committee stage 5 more options- Backbay, Mumbai Port Trust land, Dharavi, Kanjurmarg were also considered. But all these other options were ruled out on the basis of inadequate land area, technical suitability, environment/legal ownership constraints and regulatory constraints.
- Activist says Kanjurmarg option was rejected without any serious considerations. But the actual fact is there is title dispute pending in Bombay high Court since 1974, and thee court has issued status quo orders in 1997.
- Activists say the decision to built Car shed at Aarey has not stood court’s scrutiny. In fact the Courts have examined the following petitions and rejected them on merits after hearing. (a)Aarey is forest: Rejected by Bombay High Court in the case 2766/2017 and NGT 34 of 2015. (b) Change of land use from No Development zone (NDZ) to Car depot is illegal : Rejected by Bombay high Court 2766/2017. (c) Shift Metro Car Shed from Aarey Milk colony to any of the alternate site : Rejected by Supreme Court- SLP No. 31178/2018, IA No 33819/2019.
After all these happenings, now we are back into court. In my opinion there is a well planned move by NGOs and Activists to misguide the ordinary people and delay this infra project to malign the govt. Over the years , it has been seen that there are some vested NGOs who are receiving overseas funding are always trying to disturb any big infra projects. The present govt after coming to power in 2014, started auditing the funding of these NGOs and stopped the overseas funding of more than 60% of NGOs, who could not explain for which cause funding was received and where it was spent actually. Secondly Shivsena who is controlling BMC (Mumbai Municipal Corporation), and is in alliance with BJP in State Govt says, BMC has never given any permission to cut the trees in Aarey Colony. According to me, Shivsena is playing one up manship game with BJP as state election are approaching and Shivsena may want to use this as bargaining power to extract more seats from BJP, to contest in next election. This has been general tendency of Shivsena, they start some issue and afterwards they keep quiet when their purpose is served.
I do not know is going to happen in future, but one thing is for sure if this Metro project is further delayed, then there will be huge impact on the life of ordinary working Mumbaikar, who has been spending lots of hardship because of Metro Infra projects, and there is still lot to worry as 7 more Metro Projects are in the offing, and every one will need car shed space, and if every Metro project goes to courts for these car shed, then God save Mumbai.
Let us wait, watch an keep our fingers crossed.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
17th Sept 2019