BMC panel axes major hurdle to Metro-3

With the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s tree authority on Thursday allowing the axing and transplanting of 2,646 trees for a Metro car depot in Aarey

With the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s tree authority on Thursday allowing the axing and transplanting of 2,646 trees for a Metro car depot in Aarey Colony at Goregaon, a major hurdle has been cleared for the underground Metro-3.

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The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) wants to have the 33.5-km route fully operational by December 2021, for which it will start receiving rakes from next year. For this, it required the depot to be ready for stationing the rakes. The MMRC authorities did not have any comment on the panel’s decision.

The BMC’s 18-member authority on Thursday cleared a revised proposal of cutting 2,185 trees and transplanting 461. The number was brought down after suggestions from the expert members of the authority. Earlier, 2,238 trees were to be cut and 464 to be transplanted.

On Thursday, eight members of the panel cleared the revised proposal, six opposed it, two walked away from the voting process and two were absent.

Yashwant Jadhav, Shiv Sena corporator and tree authority member, said, “The passing of the proposal was illegal and we are going to challenge it legally. The NCP, which was opposing it, also supported the proposal and the Congress abstained from voting, which in a way we feel helped clear the proposal.” Jadhav added, “There is no clarity as to where the trees will be transplanted. Also, there are other options like a plot in Kanjurmarg or the depot could also have been constructed underground.”

Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray took to Twitter, saying, “The Metro is a good thing and I use the existing one and will use the new one too. However, whoever planned this green chopping in Mumbai obviously has no love for the future generations of our city.”

Thackeray added, “We all want sustainable development and when there’s an option to save the environment and especially a green area, where leopards and other species roam free within a city, the government must save it. It’s not that there’s no option. It’s stubbornness.”

The proposal had been stuck for almost a year at BMC’s tree authority as there was a stay on the functioning of the BMC’s authority by the Bombay HC.

The stay was implemented after activists had questioned the number of experts on the BMC’s authority. However, the court lifted the stay in June 2019, after the BMC appointed five experts to the authority. Post the lifting of the stay, the BMC had also called in for the public’s suggestions and objections to the cutting of trees in the first week of July.

Meanwhile, Ravi Raja, Congress corporator and leader of the Opposition, said, “We have not helped anyone. Our two members were not allowed to speak and hence we walked out.”

An expert member said, “We have given our suggestions and we were told they will be considered. On the basis of that, we supported the proposal. Also, our work was to give suggestions and ensure we balance out things. Our purpose is never to halt development.”

Stalin Dayanand, the environmentalist who had challenged the construction of the depot at the National Green Tribunal (NGT), said, “Turncoat politicians have betrayed Mumbaiites today for their vested interests and now all hopes are on Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray, who is also in power and can make the difference by taking up the matter with the CM.”