State Official Says Aarey Colony Part Of Sanjay Gandhi National Park
Criminal action has been taken against those cutting trees in the Aarey forest, the CEO of Aarey Milk Colony said.
A body of the Maharashtra government has stated that the Aarey Milk Colony in Mumbai is part of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, on whose fringes it’s located, which can have implications on the proposed construction of a car shed for the Mumbai Metro Rail Corp.
Rathod NV, the chief executive officer of Aarey Milk Colony, said in a counter affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on May 5 that “the area of SGNP (including Aarey Colony) has been notified as eco-sensitive zone under the Environment Protection Act, 1986”.
Aarey, Mumbai’s sole lung space, was a no-development zone till 2017. To pave the way for the car shed of Mumbai Metro’s line three, the then Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government modified the Mumbai Development Plan to classify the area as a green zone—allowing certain types of construction. In October last year, activists staged wide protests, opposing the felling of trees by MMRC, forcing the top court to stay the tree-cutting.
“The Forest Department has administrative control over the area of SGNP whereas Aarey administration and Dairy Development Department has administrative control over Aarey Colony and the Forest Department cannot take any legal action in respect of any illegal activities in Aarey Colony,” Rathod said.
The Supreme Court had, on June 16, dismissed a petition by the non-governmental organisation Vanashakti, which had challenged the National Green Tribunal’s order in January. The tribunal had upheld the exclusion of nearly 407 acres of land in Aarey Colony from the ecologically sensitive zone around the national park. The apex court, while dismissing the petition, said it didn’t find “any ground to interfere” with the tribunal’s order.
“We’re in the process of filing a review petition in the Supreme Court,” Stalin Dayanand, director of Vanashakti, told BloombergQuint over the phone. The NGO’s petition is one among many that has challenged the Mumbai Metro’s construction in Aarey Colony.
Meanwhile, the Uddhav Thackeray-led government is yet to decide on the car shed. Environmentalists and activists, who are fighting the case in Supreme Court, want the government to notify all of Aarey Colony as “protected forest”.
Vanashakti had filed an interim application in the Supreme Court in the last week of April against various state bodies, alleging that “during the lockdown, areas under the Aarey forest area and in the eco-sensitive zone notified around the SGNP are witnessing illegal cutting of trees and a sharp consistent rise in forest fires”.
It urged the government to “take appropriate action against the perpetrators and restore such degraded sites back to its original position”.
To this, the CEO said that “Appropriate criminal action has been taken against the perpetrators for carrying out illegal activities of tree cutting in the forest of Aarey Colony and in the eco-sensitive zone notified around SGNP.”
The submissions by the CEO have enthused the people behind the Save Aarey Movement and activists and environmentalists alike.
“In the affidavit, Aarey CEO has accepted that the 27 hamlets inhabited by forest dwellers in Aarey existed prior to the formation of Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Aarey Milk Colony,” Amrita Bhattacharjee, an environmental activist, told BloombergQuint.
Adivasis are forest dwellers and have been historically staying in forests, she said, adding this is proof that Aarey is a forest and it has a biodiversity equivalent to that of Sanjay Gandhi National Park and should be protected at any cost.