Wildlife board approves Trans Harbour Link

The state wildlife board has given its approval for the 22-km long Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) project, which is being carried out by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). The wildlife board has given clearance for diversion of the status of forest land after which the approval now will be forwarded to the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) — which comes under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).

This comes after a high level meeting was carried out last week between the MMRDA and the FAC of the MoEF in New Delhi. The MoEF had directed the MMRDA to get clearance from the state wildlife board, which has given its principle approval on the same.

Additional metropolitan commissioner, Sanjay Khandare, MMRDA, said, “The state wildlife board has given its principle approval for the MTHL project and now the approval will be forwarded to the FAC of the MoEF for clearance.”

Earlier, the MMRDA was also made to apply for fresh permissions from the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) and MoEF as the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had suspended the CRZ clearance in which it questioned the way MCZMA and MoEF gave clearance to the project.

A senior MMRDA official said, “After this clearance from the state wildlife board, 47 hectares of mangrove forest will have to be cleared for the MTHL project. Once the proposal is accepted by the FAC of MoEF, we will develop a forest of more than the size of the area of the mangrove forest is getting affected.”

Meanwhile, MMRDA will also carry out a social impact survey in the month of December, during which they will meet the project-affected people (PAPs) from the fishermen community members and will see how the MTHL project would have an impact on their livelihood. It includes meeting the members from the fishermen community to understand how the project would have an impact on their fishing activities.

“We have conducted a meeting with the fishing community to understand their problem. The community has demanded that they should be compensated as the project can affect their fishing activities. We are ready with the draft for the social impact survey and will finalise the policy after carrying out the survey for the same,” added Mr Khandare

A senior MMRDA official on condition anonymity said, “We are expecting to come out with the report on the social impact survey within next two or three months. However, there are a few demands by the fishing community like that of providing government jobs to each member from the family of fishing community which are not practical and we will have to come out with a alternative for the same.”

The project-affected people (PAP) from the fishing community are residing in areas such as Mahul, Trombay, Sewri, Vashi gaon, Divale, Moha, Belpada and Uran.

It is to be noted that the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) had considered re-studying the 22-km-long MTHL. The report is expected to be available by December end.

MTHL is a 22-km-long cable stay bridge and it will be the world’s second longest sealink after the 42-km link from Qingdao to Huandao in China.