2 yrs before Metro shed plan, govt termed Aarey as forest in 2012

Mumbai: While the state has informed the National Green Tribunal that only 76 hectares (or 187 acres) of

Aarey

is forest, the 2012 Management Plan of

Sanjay Gandhi National Park

says all of Aarey is an unclassed forest.

The Management Plan for Sanjay Gandhi National Park for 2013-23, accessed by the NGO

Vanashakti

, says 20 sqkm or 4,942 acres from Aarey Colony was transferred to the forest department in 1969. The forest department has all throughout maintained that Aarey is not a forest and has been used for non-forest activities since 1949. The NGT is hearing the plea to declare Aarey colony as an eco-sensitive zone.

The Metro III

was announced in 2014. In the same year, MMRDA was given 30 hectares for the

Metro car shed

.

The plan, prepared by the state forest department in 2012, lists ‘Aarey Gate or Elephant Gate’ in the south-west as one of the four entry gates of SGNP. It further states that in 1969, the Greater Mumbai Milk Scheme transferred the 18km-long cement concrete road from Aarey to Borivli to the state forest department, including the approach roads to Kanheri Caves and the Gandhi Memorial.

The NGO also referred to a June 22 1980 letter unearthed from the park records under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The letter written by the divisional manager of Borivli National Park to the regional manager of Forest Development Corporation Ltd, Nagpur, says: “In 1969, 20 sq km of area which are revenue lands were transferred from the Greater Bombay Milk Scheme at Aarey Colony to the Forest Division.” The letter describes 20.76 sqkm of the land being an integral part of the national park and requests the government to notify it as reserved or protected forest.

“The forest department has always shied away and refrained from admitting the truth of Aarey being part of the national park and has chosen to remain silent on the issue,” environmentalist Stalin Dayanand of Vanashakti said.

“The forest department is aggressively claiming hundreds of acres infested with slums as being part of the national park, while continuing to wash its hands of Aarey which has 5 lakh trees, 76 types of birds, seven leopards, endemic species of scorpions reptiles and many other fauna belonging to the Schedule-I of the Wildlife Protection Act,” he said, juxtaposing a picture of the slums that is recognised as forest, and a photo of the lush green forest of Aarey that the department does not consider as forest.

He has written to the chief minister attaching these documents that were procured through RTI. He alleged that the BMC announcing its plans to rid Aarey of the ‘No Development’ tag is nothing but a scam to amass at least Rs 2 lakh crore in terms of real estate assuming only half of Aarey is taken up for real estate.

In his letter to the CM, Dayanand has suggested that the existing slums can be vertically relocated to one part of Aarey closer to Western Express Highway, without any further anthropogenic pressure, and the rest of Aarey can be left inviolate, and free from construction. “The slums in SGNP can be moved to the barren areas on the periphery of the park and those areas be excised from the park. This can be compensated by connecting the Aarey forest in contiguity with the existing walled section of the national park by creating a connecting corridor,” he has said in his letter.


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