The Maharashtra government has decided to surrender about 8,000 sq m of green land in Aarey for the Metro.
The Urban Development Department (UDD) completed the formalities on Monday by handing over the land to the State Revenue Department, which will de-reserve it for carrying out works related to Metro Line-7. Senior officials said the land will be used for constructing a steel yard, machine and labour camp by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC).
“The government is acting within the ambit of the decision of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and has surrendered the land in Goregaon from one department to another. This just takes us closer to formalities of dereserving this land,” said a government official.
The NGT had in 2015 restricted any construction activity on Aarey land. But accepting a request from the UDD and the MMRDA declaring the Metro as a project of “utmost public importance”, an exception was made for about 8,000 sq m. The State government, in its submission to the NGT had said the land identified in Aarey for Metro works was not ‘core green area’, and had not been demarcated as forest land in any record. This was just a grazing ground for cattle, the State government had told the NGT. Senior MMRDA officials said the work related to Metro-7 is in progress and the station should be completed before two other stations. The stations are being planned at Aarey, Magathane and Mahananda, officials said.
The Aarey Conservation Group which has been protesting the efforts to carry out Metro work, said the latest order is another example of government bulldozing the laws and court directives. “They (the State government) think they are above the law. Even for tree-cutting, they did not have the requisite permission but convinced the police and the CEO of Aarey. For everything else, they have just bulldozed the laws, especially the MMRC,” said Biju Augustine of the Aarey Conservation Group. The Metro-7 route extends from Dahisar East to Andheri East at a length of 16.5 km, and is estimated to cost the State exchequer ₹4,737 crore.
