Three-storey Mumbai school comes up on mangroves

Making sheer mockery of the World Environment Day, celebrated on June 5, the management and trustees of Akshara High School at Charkop, Sector 8, have recently built a three-storey school building on mangroves, without requisite permission from civic authorities. This is in complete violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) laws of Maharashtra government and a Bombay High Court order, which prohibits any kind of construction within 50 metres of mangroves.

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The vanishing green belt: Locals allege school authorities have built the three-storey building and a playground - (circled in pic) - by illegally reclaiming the wetland. Pic/Shailesh Bhatia

Sunday mid-day has in its possession documents from the Building Proposal department of R Ward, BMC, which have been given in response to a Right to Information (RTI) petition filed by local activist Reji Abraham. The documents state that no proposal has been submitted on the plot.

Akshara High School at Charkop, Sector 8. Pics/ShAILESH BHATIA

"Apart from the building on the mangroves, there's also a playground the size of a football field there. The wetland has been reclaimed illegally," alleged Abraham, president of United Association for Social Education and Public Welfare, an NGO. When contacted, ex-state minister and ex-president of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress party, Ranjeet Deshmukh, who owns Akshara High School, as confirmed by his manager Anil Nikadu, said that he possessed all requisite papers for the school's construction.

Also read: How 1 acre of mangroves vanished in nine years

Akshara High School at Charkop, Sector 8. Pics/Shailesh Bhatia

Official speak
Assistant Commissioner Kishore Gandhi (R Central) confirmed that he had received the complaint against the structure and has initiated a departmental inquiry. "We have been given seven days to submit the report," he said.

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Rampant encroachment
Abraham alleged that the land mafia has been conducting illegal operations in Charkop. He claimed that despite bringing this to the notice of authorities from Building and Factory Department, R/ Central Ward, no strict action has been taken. "The latest victim is the Charkop village, in the heart of the mangrove area, whose periphery is being encroached," he alleged.

Vishal Kamothi, a resident, stated that destruction of mangroves is affecting locals. "Our area used to be a couple of degrees cooler than the rest of Mumbai, owing to the wetlands. But since few years, summers here have become unbearable," he said.