Bullet train, port project to escalate MVA-Centre tussle

The tussle between the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government, over the Metro-3 car shed, is set to intensify further with the state now looking at the Centre’s ambitious Vadhavan port project.

The tussle between the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government, over the Metro-3 car shed, is set to intensify further with the state now looking at the Centre’s ambitious Vadhavan port project.

On Friday, Thackeray called a meeting of locals from Dahanu opposing the project.

On a day the leader of Opposition, Devendra Fadnavis, slammed the Uddhav Thackeray-led government over its plan to consider building the shed at a Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) plot (see box) where a terminus for the Centre’s flagship Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project has been proposed, the state said they respect the peoples’ stance against the proposed Vadhavan port in Dahanu, Palghar district.

On Friday, Thackeray called a meeting of locals from Dahanu opposing the project. On February 5, the Centre had approved setting up Vadhavan port at ₹65,544 crore as it has a natural draft of about 20m, to handle modern container vessels.

Earlier, Fadnavis called the state’s BKC plan “childish”, while Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut said the Opposition need not worry about the Metro-3 car shed.

Fadnavis said, “The idea of shifting the car shed to BKC will increase the project cost multiple times. The cost of building a car shed will go up to around ₹5,000 crore to ₹6,000 crore, as against ₹500 crore, following the original plan, because BKC land is very much expensive. It will also increase the annual maintenance cost by many folds and make the Metro project non-feasible.”

Fadnavis also said the advisors of the Thackeray government were so bad that they will drown this government as well as the state.

Hitting back at Fadnavis, Raut said, “They [Opposition] don’t need to worry about it [Metro-3 shed[. The government doesn’t need to take their advice,” he said.

Meanwhile, after the meeting with Dahanu locals, state urban development minister Eknath Shinde said they respect the people’s view. “Primarily, it appears that the locals are against the project and the chief minister has taken a stand that the state government respects their viewpoint and are with them,” Shinde told reporters.

Shiv Sena MP from Palghar, Rajendra Gavit, who was also part of the meeting, said that it is a destructive project for the locals. “The project requires around 5,000 acres, hence, locals are of the view that they will lose their farm land. Similarly, local fishermen are concerned that it will bring an adverse impact on their traditional business and deprive them of their livelihood,” Gavit said.

“The decision of the Dahanu Taluka Environment Protection Authority (DTEPA) would be very important as the authority has to clear the project first, because Dahanu is considered as an environmentally sensitive area,” he added.

Dahanu taluka has been enjoying special protection since 1991, as the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) declared it an ecologically fragile area, restricting hazardous industries, among other things and also formed DTEPA. The notification was passed following the directives of the Supreme Court.

Currently, DTEPA is being headed by the state urban secretary Bhushan Gagrani. MoEFCC now wants to scrap DTEPA and has filed an application before the apex court.

BJP leader Ashish Shelar alleged that the intention of the Thackeray government is to halt development projects such as the bullet train .

“The leaders and officials in the state government have taken the decision (to explore BKC plot as one of the options for car shed) with ill intention. Proposing the car shed at a site where it is not possible to build clearly means they want to halt the bullet train project, rather than completing the Metro-3 project. They are trying to stop Mumbai’s development,” Shelar said.