IT hub in Navi Mumbai won’t be eco-friendly: Environmentalists
NatConnect Foundation has complained to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) and the chief minister that CIDCO has allotted vast stretches of mangrove zones and wetlands to Navi Mumbai special economic zone.
Uran: The upcoming IT project in Navi Mumbai special economic zone (NMSEZ) will be a recipe for disaster as they are planned on mangroves and wetlands of Uran, as per environmentalists in the city. Earlier this year, the state government granted permission to set up an Integrated Industrial Authority in NMSEZ with 85% commercial and 15% residential use.
NatConnect Foundation has complained to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) and the chief minister that CIDCO has allotted vast stretches of mangrove zones and wetlands to NMSEZ. Moreover, the destruction of mangroves and wetlands has been going on unchecked it alleged.
Even the orders from the Bombay high court to restore the wetlands and mangroves have gone unheeded, NatConnect said. In view of this, the upcoming project is bound to cause disasters, it said.
“The reckless landfill on mangroves and wetlands is already causing floods in villages and paddy fields,” Nandakumar Pawar, director of Sagarshakti said. “This is because the construction has interfered with the free flow of intertidal water and raising of land levels for building the Dronagiri node.”
“Project proponents might call us doomsayers, but nature has already begun to strike back with roads built on mangroves and wetlands developing wide cracks and many villages reeling under floods,” he added.
On February 17, the state permitted the development of IT-related projects in the zone. As per the GR, the integrated industrial area will also have an industry-academic partnership to promote training and skill development programme through skill, development centres, research and development centres, training centres, digital centres, information, technology centres, training centres for art, performance and sports etc, apart from a medical school along with a hospital and related infrastructure.
All these will come up on mangroves and wetlands which dominate the NMSEZ, green groups said, adding, “These projects won’t be safe.”
“One of the major areas in question is the 289-hectare intertidal Panje wetland which is also supposed to be a holding pond as a flood mitigation measure. With CIDCO designating the holding pond area as part of the NMSEZ sector 16 to 28, it will see massive construction and the holding pond will disappear,” Pawar said warning about floods in the area as not an inch of land will be left for absorbing the excess water.
“It is a matter of common sense that wetlands act as sponges to hold water and the urban planners, unfortunately, lack it,” he added.
“As per the high court ruling of September 2018, all mangroves are supposed to have been handed over to the forest department for protection and conservation, but there is no account of the tidal water plants under NMSEZ. The chief minister had asked the Mangrove Cell to check these sea plants, but “we have not heard anything further”, Pawar said.
NMSEZ and CIDCO did not respond to the allegations.
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