mumbai

Updated: Feb 06, 2018 00:58 IST

Green activists are up in arms against metro authorities, again. For a long time, activists have been protesting against the cutting of trees in Aarey to make way for a car-shed for the Metro-3 (Colaba-Bandra-Seepz) corridor. Now, they allege that authorities have destroyed mangroves at Juhu-Koliwada in the last 15 days to build a casting-yard for the Metro-2B (DN Nagar-Mandale) line.

A casting yard is a confined place where all the concrete structures required for the metro project are assembled.

Zoru Bhatena, an activist who visited the site on Monday, said that four hectares of mangroves at Juhu beach have been destroyed. The contractor for Metro-2B is building a casting yard at the site currently, officials confirmed.

Bhatena said, “To destroy a beach to build a metro is just a senseless act. How can the government even allow this? The area also comes under the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ). The area has been marked as a no-development zone where construction cannot be allowed as per the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) Development Plan (DP) 1991.”

Officials from the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) have refuted the charges. They said that no mangroves were destroyed to clear the land for casting yard.

An official said, “The land in question has been in MMRDA’s possession for the last six years. MMRDA can allow it to be used for temporary purposes. Thus, it is being used as a casting yard.”