Mumbai: The Shiv Sena has upped the ante on the controversy surrounding a plan to build a Metro car depot at Mumbai’s Aarey Colony, an issue that has always been a bone of contention with its ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
This has come at a time when the two parties are trying to hammer out a seat-sharing agreement for the Maharashtra assembly elections due later this year.
Shiv Sena leader and Yuva Sena president Aaditya Thackeray, who is being projected as the future chief minister by his party, held a press conference Tuesday with two biodiversity researchers to highlight how construction of the car shed at the ecologically-sensitive Aarey Colony will not just lead to axing of 2,700 trees, but will also harm the entire ecosystem of biodiversity, causing irreparable loss to Mumbai.
Thackeray, however, refrained from directly hitting out at the Devendra Fadnavis-led government, of which the Shiv Sena is a part, and instead focused on the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL), the implementing authority for the underground Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro, for which the government has proposed to build the car depot at Aarey Colony — one of Mumbai’s few green lungs.
“It is not just about 2,700 trees. The trees can be transplanted, can be replaced. You can plant 27 crore trees also. But the core question is about biodiversity, about mammals, about birds, about flies, about everything that exists there. The car shed is not needed there. It can be taken anywhere else. We are destroying an entire city’s biodiversity,” said Thackeray.
“Another thing is that this is the floodplain of the Mithi river. This year, there have been some landfills there with mud, water and concrete that have been put there. Mithi has already overflown thrice in three months, which is the biggest danger for the city,” he said.
Thackeray asserted that he was speaking to the media as a “Mumbai citizen and environment lover” even though the press conference was held at Shiv Sena Bhavan, the party’s headquarters in Mumbai.
The Yuva Sena chief began the press conference with a long presentation by biodiversity experts Nayan Khanolkar and Rajesh Sanap on the different species of animals, spiders, butterflies, scorpions found in Aarey Colony along with their exploratory work in the area.
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Sena’s opposition to Metro car depot
The proposal to construct a Metro car shed at Aarey Colony has been a constant subject of disagreement between the Shiv Sena and the BJP. While the Shiv Sena-led Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been against the proposal, the BJP-led state government has been pushing for it, citing lack of other suitable plots for the car shed.
In 2017, the BMC’s general body, which has a majority of Sena corporators, voted against reserving land in Aarey Colony for the Metro car depot in Mumbai’s development plan. The state government, however, reversed the decision.
Last month, the civic body’s tree authority discussed and approved a proposal to cut 2,702 trees at the colony for the car shed. While all Shiv Sena members in the tree authority voted against the proposal, BJP and NCP corporators supported it.
Speaking at the press conference, Thackeray reiterated that the Shiv Sena is not against the Metro project, which will undoubtedly be beneficial for the city, but is against the long-term damage to the city that the construction of the car depot will cause.
He also demanded the transfer of Ashwini Bhide, the IAS officer heading the project, if she is not willing to find a solution to the demand made by several Mumbai residents with regard to shifting of the car depot.
‘Project will mitigate carbon footprint’
The MMRCL is trying to battle opposition to the construction of the car depot by emphasising on the environmental benefits of the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro.
The corporation says that the 30 hectares required for the Metro car shed is just 2 per cent of the green belt at Aarey and the number of trees to be felled is also a small fraction of the total tree cover, which too, they say, will be compensated by planting more trees.
Chief Minister Fadnavis gave the same argument last week while speaking to students at an event organised by India’s International Movement to Unite Nations.
“This matter had gone up to the Supreme Court, which too have a judgment in favour of the project. The land where the trees are being cut is not a forest land. With the underground Metro project, we will be able to mitigate carbon footprint to such an extent that we would have needed 2 crore full-grown trees otherwise,” he had said.
He added the MMRCL would transplant close to 500 trees and plant 3,000 full-grown trees at Aarey.
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prolly influenced by his Bollywood-iya friends. After Bala saheb Thackrey,,,all these Thackreys have been disappointment. What a fall.