CIDCO directed to transfer remaining mangroves to forest department

The survey is expected to be completed within two months across districts at the expense of the forest department, since district collectors have expressed both financial and practical difficulties in conducting manual surveys in dense and remote mangrove swamplands

Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Mangrove Protection Authority (MSMPA) in its last meeting on August 10 directed the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) to unconditionally hand over all remaining mangroves in its possession to the forest department (FD) for safekeeping, in the next two to three months.

Mumbai, India - April 13, 2018: Mangroves of Sewri Creek in Mumbai, India, on Friday, April 13, 2018. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times) (Representational Photo)

The area of the mangroves is about 1,300 hectares (ha), equal to the area of around 144 Oval Maidans. While CIDCO had earlier transferred around 1,737ha to the FD, around 658ha, which were slated to be handed over, are yet to come under the FD’s possession as per the Bombay high court orders in 2006 and 2018.

While the minutes of the MSMPA’s August 10 meeting are awaited, additional principal chief conservator of forests (APPC) (mangrove cell) S V Ramarao confirmed that the matter had been discussed, and Mahesh Kalyankar, Konkan divisional commissioner, had given certain directions to CIDCO.

“CIDCO has two large land parcels with mangroves, one of which we will get in the next month,” he said. “The process of taking possession of the remaining land will start a month or two after that. The Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) has agreed to transfer 1,400 hectares to us in the coming weeks.”

Ramarao said that a survey would be undertaken to identify all the mangroves which had not yet been handed over to the forest department by government agencies. “By a conservative estimate, 4,000 hectares are remaining, mainly with CIDCO, VVMC and the revenue department,” he said.

The survey is expected to be completed within two months across districts at the expense of the forest department, since district collectors have expressed both financial and practical difficulties in conducting manual surveys in dense and remote mangrove swamplands. The mangrove cell is considering the use of GPS-enabled drones to overcome this hurdle. The results of the survey are also likely to iron out discrepancies in existing mangrove maps prepared by the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC). For example, in Mira-Bhayandar, large portions of dense mangrove cover have not been counted as such.

Even as these instructions are being given to bring more mangroves under the custody of the FD, the state government via the Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB) is parallelly seeking to overturn the Bombay HC’s order, which sought a “total freeze” on destruction of mangroves in Maharashtra. A special leave petition—SLP Diary No13791 of 2020—has been filed before the Supreme Court, seeking to allow construction within 50 metres of mangroves (buffer zones). Hindustan Times was the first to report on this development in April this year.

Construction within 50 metres of mangroves was banned by the HC first in 2005 on a petition by the Bombay Environment Action Group (BEAG). In 2018, the court passed a judgement, which read: “Destruction of mangroves offended the fundamental rights of the citizens and hence it was a mandatory duty of the state and its agencies to protect and preserve the mangroves. All mangroves in the state are to be declared as protected or reserved forests, including land belonging to government agencies.”

A spokesperson for CIDCO said that the Authority would not be able to provide a comment before Monday. Anita Patil, member secretary, MSMPA, and Mahesh Kalyankar, who is the head of the Authority, declined to comment when contacted by Hindustan Times.