On Monday, The Supreme Court has warned Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) not to reclaim any more of the stretch of the sea than what is required for the construction of the coastal road project. The coastal road project will be connecting Marine Drive area in South to suburban Borivali in the north.
For those unaware, the coastal road project is one of the pet projects of the current Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. It is estimated that the whole project will require an investment of INR 14,000 crore Mumbai coastal road.
Earlier in the year, the project has run into some trouble after people started raising questions on the number of trees that had to be cut to execute this. There were also objections from fishermen community on how this will impact their livelihood. In February 2020, the Supreme Court had raised questions had asked why the BMC needed to reclaim 75 hectares of the sea when only 20 were required for the road. This question was raised in Supreme Court by Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for a PIL petitioner. He told the bench that consisted of CJI S A Bobde and Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant that for a nine-km stretch of the 32-km coastal road, only 20 hectares was required. He asked why project proponent L&T was acquiring 75.
While hearing this case, the court noted that BMC should not reclaim more than what is required. A bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde went on to add that on a map BMC should mark the areas that it will be touching and which they are not and even asked BMC to file an affidavit detailing the land it is acquiring, land required only for road along with a map of the area in two weeks.
The apex court made these observations while hearing a plea seeking a stay on the ongoing reclamation work by the BMC for the coastal road project. The Environmentalist have been opposing the project and in the past there have also been complaints of noise pollution and