Citizens, activists welcome decision to shift Mumbai Metro-3 car shed from Aarey

Citizens and activists hailed the state’s move to shift the Metro car shed from Aarey Colony to Kanjurmarg, ending one of the longest urban forest protection battles

Citizens and activists hailed the state’s move to shift the Metro car shed from Aarey Colony to Kanjurmarg, ending one of the longest urban forest protection battles on Sunday.

HT Image

“It is a game changer for the climate change narrative for Mumbai, and building a reinvented perspective towards conserving the city’s green spaces. Territorial areas in Mumbai have not seen reserved forest declaration in almost 60 years. It is remarkable,” said Pankaj Joshi, conservation architect. Wildlife biologist Anand Pendharkhar said, “The decision goes to show that if managing politicians have the intention, even a badly designed infrastructure project can be changed to safeguard local ecosystems and could be sent back to the drafting tables.”

Since November 2014, Aarey Milk Colony, Goregaon had been a bone of contention ever since proposals to build a car-shed across 33-ha for the Metro 3 line (Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ) were proposed by the state. What started out with just one notice stuck on a few trees alerting citizens about felling 2,298 trees gathering local protests, the years that followed saw agitations multiply to mammoth proportions and even arrests.

Citizens and environmentalists were at loggerheads with the state before the National Green Tribunal, Bombay high court (HC) and the Supreme Court (SC), all opposing the car-shed construction while demanding overall protection of Aarey as a forest, claiming it was one of the last green lungs in Mumbai and home to a large biodiversity of flora and fauna. “The idea of protecting Aarey completely and pushing out the car shed is a good and necessary move to protect Mumbaiites from increasing air pollution,” said Rajendra Shinde, botanist and principal of St Xavier’s College.

Amrita Bhattacharjee from Aarey Conservation Group, said, “As the final decision has come, there is an immediate need to restore the degraded car-shed plot at Aarey.”

Over six years, recurrent petitions before courts were dismissed, numerous protests and human chains were witnessed as state and central committees deliberated on alternate sites for the car-shed. A 2015 technical committee that suggested it would not be suitable for constructing the car depot in light of ecological damage at Aarey and had proposed the 41-ha Kanjurmarg plot for the depot. “Despite Sunday’s decision, the felling of trees at the Aarey plot that happened in 2019 will remain a serious loss to Mumbai’s environment,” said one of panel members requesting anonymity.

The Aarey movement saw campaigns by artists, musicians, tribals, lawyers, children, youth, senior citizens, researchers, ecologists, architects, planners, all proposing the declaration of Aarey as a forest. “There were people who had gone on indefinite fasts for Aarey trees to be protected. Mumbaiites really understood what a forest, flood plains, and biodiversity was all about only after joining this movement,” said Biju Augustine, Aarey resident.

On October 4, 2019, as the HC dismissed petitions challenging tree felling at Aarey then state bodies began felling trees amid huge protests from citizens. Twenty-nine activists were arrested and charged under sections of the Indian Penal Code after clashes with police. The charges were dropped after directions from Thackeray and the charge sheets were rendered null and void recently by the state. “This is a very happy day for us as our efforts have not gone in vain,” said Ashish Patil, the first person to be arrested among the protestors.

According to the CM’s announcement on Sunday, the state intends to club the car-shed site for the Metro 6 and 3 project by merging Metro lines for smoother connectivity from the eastern suburbs to south Mumbai. Though the Aarey station too has been deleted, an existing ramp area is expected to still be in Aarey to connect the underground Metro-3 line to the overhead Metro-6 project. “Citizens will get the priceless benefit of better metro connectivity. The state will benefit from lifelong cost savings from merging depots, and Mumbaiites will forever benefit from the protection of Aarey as a forest. It is a win-win for everyone,” said Zoru Bhathena, activist and one of the petitioners before the SC.

Some academicians said there were many unanswered questions about why only one-fourth of Aarey had been selectively declared as forest, the impact of that on the local tribal residents, and plans to protect the remaining three-fourth of the green lung was still unclear. “Aarey as a whole is an important catchment area of the Mithi and Oshiwara river systems, any large project there will have serious downstream impacts. But it also provides livelihoods and shelter to communities who live there. The rights of inhabitants as well as the ecology need to be safeguarded,” said Hussain Indorewala

A qualitative study using maps had shown how Aarey had lost its green cover periodically since the late 1940s, and that proposed projects would lead to an overall proposed loss of 40% of Aarey, according to a study by Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), Mumbai. These developments were likely to sever the contiguity with SGNP affecting wildlife movement, disrupting hydrological processes and the natural drainage pattern of the green lung, the report said.

Aarey is home to 48 species of reptiles, 12 amphibians, 77 bird species, six species of venomous snakes, leopards, deer, rusty-spotted, jungle and civet cats, and even a rare snake-like amphibian caecilian among other wildlife. There have been six new discoveries and five rediscoveries of spiders, scorpions and geckos over 10 years. “These discoveries at Aarey have not happened randomly. It is a natural process which has taken millions of years for the coming up of this forest,” said noted herpetologist Varad Giri.