Goregaon-Mulund Link Road: Cut time for green impact study, Mumbai civic body tells Centre

The Ministry of Environment and Forests had asked the BMC to conduct the environment impact assessment study in not less than 12 months, or three seasons.

After the Union environment ministry delayed the Goregaon- Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project by one year, the civic body has requested that the time assigned to study the environment impact of the project be reduced.

The 5.96-km GMLR will involve building twin tunnels of three lanes each under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park to connect the Goregaon Film City and Mulund near Amar Nagar (HT FILE)

The expert appraisal committee (EAC) of the ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to conduct the environment impact assessment study in not less than 12 months or three seasons. This had derailed the plan of the civic body, which expected to finish the impact assessment study within six months and begin construction next year

The EAC had issued terms of reference for environment clearance of the Rs3,800-crore project last month. “We have written to the Union ministry asking them to reduce the timeline to one season,” said Sanjay Mukherjee, additional municipal commissioner, projects.

In addition, panel had also asked for noise and vibration impact study specific to the burrowing fauna and nocturnal fauna in SGNP also to be conducted over three seasons and not less than 12 months.

The 5.96-km GMLR will involve building twin tunnels of three lanes each under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park to connect the Goregaon Film City and Mulund near Amar Nagar. To implement the project, the BMC will need to divert 21.5 hectare of forest land, which would be the area of the tunnel under the national park. The project will also involve chopping of 625 trees.

The panel has also asked for a detailed traffic studiy including traffic forecasting modelling to be carried out for justification of current link road and other link roads.