In a development that threatens to trigger a major confrontation between the Centre and Maharashtra Government, the BJP-led NDA Government has put a spoke into the wheel of the Mumbai Metro-III car shed project, by opposing the Uddhav Thackeray dispensation’s decision to locate the metro car shed at Kanjurmarg in north-east Mumbai.
Nearly three weeks after the Maharashtra scrapped the previous BJP-led Government’s decision to locate Metro phase-III car shed at Aarey colony at Goregaon and moved the project to Kanjurmarg, the Centre’s Department of Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) has shot off a letter to the state government opposing the location of car shed project at Kanjurmarg would be “against the interest of the Government of India”. The DPIIT also claimed ownership of the 102-acres land there.
Lodging a protest with the state government against the move to re-locate the car shed project at Kanjurmarg, DPIIT Secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra said: “The improper and unilateral action of the Mumbai Suburban District Collector and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has caused severe loss” to the DPIIT and the Government of India”
“I would request you to take necessary steps and to direct the collector to withdraw the orders passed in this regard in order to protect the interests of the Government of India,” Mohapatra stated in his letter to the state government.
However, the Maharashtra government is in no mood to back off from its decision to locate the car shed project at Kanjurmarg. So much so that the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders have slammed the Centre for its efforts to sabotage the Metro-III car shed project and said that notwithstanding the reservations expressed by the Centre about locating the project at Kanjurmarg, they would go ahead with the project.
On his part, Maharashtra Tourism and Environment Minister Aditya Thackeray indirectly expressed his unhappiness over the manner in which the Centre had tried to create hurdles for the Mumbai Metro-III project by saying that the land on which the car shed was being built belonged to the Maharashtra government.
Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar of the Shiv Sena charged that it was a “conspiracy” against the MVA government. “An affidavit was filed in Bombay High Court during the tenure of the previous BJP-led government saying that the Kanjur Marg land belongs to the State Government,” she said.
Charging that the Opposition BJP was out to stall the Mumbai Metro-III Car Shed project, NCP chief spokesperson and Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik said: “Way back in 2002, the Centre had transferred large tracts of salt-pan lands to the Maharashtra government.... First the BJP said the land belonged to a private owner. Now they are saying that the land belongs to the Central government. The BJP is merely creating hurdles for the Mumbai Metro carshed This is nothing but the BJP’s conspiracy to stall the Metro project”..
Hitting out at the Centre for desperately trying to stall the project, Congress Spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that since 1981, the land ownership was with the state government and accused the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP of continuously creating obstacles for the MVA Government.
NCP MP Supriya Sule charged that the BJP was destroying the country’s “cooperative federal structure” “The country is now lapsing into an undeclared state of Emergency. By opposing the location of the Metro car shed project at Kanjurmarg, the ruling BJP at the Centre is trying to do injustice to Maharashtra,” she said.
It may be recalled that on October 11, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had announced that the proposed car shed for the Metro phase-III project would now be located at Kanjurmarg in north-east Mumbai to save forests at Aarey Colony at Goregaon in north Mumbai, where the was project was initially located.
The decision to locate the Mumbai Metro-III car shed was incidentally Uddhav’s first major policy initiative taken after assuming the highest office in the state had on November 29 last year. He had stayed the work on the construction of a car shed for Metro phase-III at Aarey Colony in the wake of Shiv Sena-supported protests.
Among other things, Uddhav had said that his government would not spend any money on re-locating the project at Kanjurmarg and that it would utilise the structure constructed for the car shed at Goregaon for some other purpose.
Uddhav said that his government had declared earlier 600 acre land at Aarey colony as forest area. “We will now add another 200 acres area to the earlier 600 acre area and declare a total of 800 acre area as forest area at Aarey colony. The state government will not do anything that would affect the lives of Adivasis living in the Aarey forest area. We will take all steps to protect the animals in the Aarey forests,” the Chief Minister said.”
After the shifting of proposed car shed Metro phase-III, the two Metro corridors -- Colaba-Bandra-Seepz (Line 3) and Swami Samarth Nagar-Vikhroli (Line 6) will be integrated,” Uddhav said.
The MVA government’s decision to stay the construction of metro phase-III car shed project and order a review of the project should be seen in the developments that had taken place in the run-up to the October Maharashtra Assembly polls. The Shiv Sena had vehemently opposed “illegal” tree felling at Aarey colony to pave way for the construction of a car shed for Metro phase-III.
After the Bombay High Court on October 4, 2019 dismissed all petitions challenging the proposed felling of 2,646 trees in Aarey Colony at Goregaon, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) felled 2,141 trees on October 4 and 5 following the HC’s order upholding of the BMC’s Tree Authority’s permission to fell 2,185 trees at Aarey colony.
Later on October 7 2019, the Supreme Court had restrained the MMRCL from cutting any more trees at Aarey Colony till October 21. On October 21, 2019 the Supreme Court clarified that the controversial Metro car shed project in Mumbai's Aarey colony could continue, but the freeze on tree cutting would remain.