Months after HC rap on Powai Lake, BMC starts cleaning up after itself

An engineer with the department, looking after water works in the eastern suburbs, said, “The work will be done before the monsoon, hopefully. I cannot comment on the legality of the project, but the cycle track development, on the whole, is no longer being pursued

Mumbai: Close to a year after the Bombay high court (HC) disallowed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) from building a 10-km circumambulatory cycle track around the banks of Powai Lake, the BMC has now begun taking steps to restore the area to its original conditions.

Mumbai, India - October 17, 2021: People stage a peaceful protest against BMC's illegal cycle track project inside the Powai Lake at Visarjan Point, Powai, in Mumbai, India, on Sunday, October 17, 2021. (Photo by Vijay Bate/HT Photo) (HT PHOTO)

A tender to this effect has been floated by the corporation’s hydraulic engineer’s department.

An engineer with the department, looking after water works in the eastern suburbs, said, “The work will be done before the monsoon, hopefully. I cannot comment on the legality of the project, but the cycle track development, on the whole, is no longer being pursued.”

The BMC, in September last year, withdrew a special leave petition (SLP) it had filed before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to overturn HC’s order, which ruled that the proposed cycle track around Powai Lake was illegal as it was in violation of the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules.

While pronouncing its judgement, the bench also directed the BMC to restore the reclaimed portion of the lake bank to its original form. The BMC’s new tender is the first step taken towards ensuring greater compliance with the HC’s order, though this was not before a contempt petition in the matter could be filed by city-based NGO Vanashakti, one of the original petitioners against the project.

Petitioners, which also included IIT-B students Omkar Supekar and Abhishek Tripathi, had contended that constructing the 10-km cycling track would have an adverse impact on the habitat of Indian marsh crocodiles, which reside in the lake.

Activist Zoru Bathena had also filed an intervention application through advocate Manoj Shirsat, which stated that a six-km road bordering the lake, which is used by the IITians, was already in existence and hence there was no need for a separate track for cycling. The project was widely opposed by activists, environmentalists and local citizens.

The IITians had also raised a grievance that the track would harm the wetlands ecosystem as well as disrupt the natural flora and fauna of the lake. The petitioners stated that in 2009, the Supreme Court had passed a judgement that had stressed safeguarding wetlands and hence sought directions to the BMC to comply with the same.

The BMC, meanwhile, had fought against these PILs, terming them as “misconceived”. The lake was a man-made reservoir and hence did not fall under the purview of wetlands, the BMC had said in court at the time, adding that the project was in the public interest and intended to create a new, accessible public place — akin to Marine Drive or Worli Sea Face — which the eastern suburbs presently lack.