Mumbai: Bombay High Court allows felling of 20,000 mangrove trees

Representation pic

The National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) has received permission from the Bombay High Court to cut around 20,000 mangrove trees in the city and neighbouring districts of Palghar and Thane for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.

Of the 508-km corridor, 156 km of the track lies in Maharashtra, 4 km in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and 348 km in Gujarat. Work has proceeded well in other states, but had a sharp slowdown due to land acquisition issues, which have now been resolved and the work is picking up pace. The high-speed train includes a 21-km tunnel, including a 7-km undersea tunnel at Thane Creek. The plea was opposed by ‘Bombay Environmental Action Group', an NGO, on the grounds that no study was undertaken about the survival rate of saplings to be planted as a compensatory measure and the Environmental Impact Assessment report for felling trees had not been provided. The NHSRCL had denied the objections.

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As per a 2018 HC order, there exists a "total freeze" on the destruction of mangroves across the state and permission has to be sought from the high court each time an authority wishes to fell mangroves for any public project. A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Abhay Ahuja allowed the plea filed by the NHSRCL seeking permission to cut the mangrove trees.

In its petition filed in 2020, the NHSRCL had assured the court it would plant five times the total mangrove trees that were earlier proposed to be felled and the number would not be reduced for the same. As per the said order, a 50-metre buffer zone must be created around the area that hosts the mangroves and no construction activity or dumping of debris can be permitted within this buffer zone.