The Bombay High Court granted the National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) permission on Friday to cut down approximately 20,000 mangrove trees in the city and neighbouring districts of Palghar and Thane for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Abhay Ahuja granted the NHSRCL’s request for permission to cut the mangrove trees.
According to a 2018 high court order, there is a “total freeze” on the destruction of mangroves throughout the state, and permission from the high court is required each time an authority wishes to fell mangroves for any public project.
According to the order, a 50-meter buffer zone must be established around the mangroves, and no construction or debris dumping is permitted within this zone.
In its petition filed in 2020, the NHSRCL assured the court that it would plant five times the total number of mangrove trees that were previously proposed to be felled, and that the number would not be reduced.
The ‘Bombay Environmental Action Group,’ an NGO, opposed the petition on the grounds that no study was conducted on the survival rate of saplings to be planted as a compensatory measure, and the Environmental Impact Assessment report for felling trees was not provided.
The NHSRCL had denied the NGO’s objections, claiming that it had obtained the necessary approvals for the felling of trees for the project of public importance and would compensate for the loss by planting saplings as directed.
The 508-kilometer high-speed rail corridor connecting Ahmedabad and Mumbai is expected to reduce travel time from six and a half hours to two and a half hours.
After the Eknath Shinde-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government took power in June of this year, the bullet train project received a major boost. This project, the foundation of which was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2017, has received all approvals from the government.