Navi Mumbai: Environmentalist Moves NGT Against Allotment of CRZ Land for Temple

On the day of World Wetlands Day, a city-based environmentalist has moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to seek restoration of a tidal influential zone allocated by CIDCO for the Tirupati Balaji temple at Ulwe in Navi Mumbai.

NatConnect Foundation director B N Kumar filed a fresh application on Friday challenging the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) permission given for the temple, ignoring the fact that the plot is part of a temporary casting yard meant for the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL).

The casting yard has come up on inter-tidal wetland, mudflats, and mangroves, the applicant said. He presented a Google Earth map from 2018, before the existence of the casting yard, showing the biodiversity area with tidal waters, fishing ponds, mudflats, and mangroves.

Kumar had moved the NGT in October last year, challenging the allotment of 10 acres out of the 18-hectare casting yard. Even as the hearing was on, the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) informed the NGT that it has given the CRZ nod via a letter dated November 20, 2023.

Kumar’s counsel, Ronita Bhattacharya, pointed out that the final permission was not in the public domain, and the MCZMA was yet to upload it on its website.

Noting the concerns expressed by the counsel, the NGT’s western zonal bench — comprising judicial member Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh and expert member Dr. Vijay Kulkarni — permitted the filing of a fresh application against the CRZ clearance.

Kumar filed the application on Friday and said, “On this World Wetlands Day, we want to focus on the plight of our vanishing wetlands under the garb of infrastructure projects.”

“We have nothing against the temple, and, on the contrary, we request CIDCO to allot an alternative plot, away from the ecologically sensitive zone,” he said.

The fresh application at NGT prayed for setting aside the MCZMA’s permission given for the temple on plot number 3 at Sector 12, Ulwe, in Panvel Taluka. The activist also urged the NGT to direct CIDCO to restore the free flow of intertidal water from the Thane Creek to the entire 18.7-hectare casting yard plot and ensure the resurrection of mangroves.

CIDCO, which allotted the area for a temporary casting yard, sought to make the landfill a permanent reclamation, Kumar argued.

The MCZMA has not considered the fact that the casting yard was of a temporary nature and that the area was an ecologically sensitive zone dominated by tidal influential zones, mudflats, and mangroves, the application pointed out.

The applicant submitted that the project site is actually land traditionally used by the local fisherfolk of Ulwe/Gavan, who used it for entering the creek as well as for fishing in the intertidal waters before 2019, prior to the use of the land for the purpose of the casting yard of the MTHL project.

The fishing community in Ulwe/Gavan comprises over 1000 families who engage in traditional fishing for generations within their families.

The fishing community was later barred from entering the area by the contractor for the MTHL project when the land was being utilized mainly for the casting yard. The fishing community was hopeful that they would get access to the area after the temporary casting yard work is over.

But their expectations were proved to be futile as the temple project is now proposed at the same site. It is noteworthy that the forest department’s site inspection report dated October 8, 2023, also noted the presence of an existing natural fishing pond right next to the project site.