Fadnavis demands shifting Metro car shed to Aarey; claims foul play in Kanjurmarg choice

BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis wrote to Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday urging that the car shed for the Mumbai Metro 3 project should be shifted back to Aarey. He also dubbed the constitution of a 9-member committee headed by state Secretary Sanjay Kumar to examine alternative plots for building the car shed as a "farce". Dispelling the notion that the Aarey plot will be sufficient for the car shed only till 2031, Fadnavis stressed that the Metro plan was designed keeping in mind the growth in population till 2053. While mentioning that only 25 hectares of land in Aarey will be required initially, he revealed that an additional 1.4 hectares of the land shall be used after 2031 to accommodate more trains.

According to him, shifting the car shed to Kanjurmarg will result in losses worth thousands of crores besides delaying the Metro 3 project for at least 4 years. In a startling claim, the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly alleged that the state government was seeking to benefit private developers to the tune of thousands of crores by choosing the Kanjurmarg plot for the car shed. Moreover, the former Maharashtra CM explained that a proposal was already pending with the Centre regarding the construction of 1 lakh homes for the poor on the same site under the aegis of the PM Awas Yojana. 

Read: Metro Carshed Row: Thackeray Says 'not About My Ego', Fadnavis Retorts 'make Cost Public'

Read: BJP Vs MVA: Maharashtra Govt Mulls Shifting Metro Car Shed To Bullet-train Project Site

Row over Metro car shed

The Mumbai Metro 3 project comprises a 33.5 km underground corridor running along the Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ route. In total, there will be 27 stations out of which 26 will be underground. At present, nearly 78 per cent of the tunnelling work has been completed. There has been a long dispute about the location of the Metro car shed. According to environmental activists, Aarey is a forest area and any construction work would hamper the ecological balance. On the other hand, the Devendra Fadnavis regime highlighted that the long-term gains of the project would offshoot the temporary damage caused due to the felling of trees.  

Widespread protests were held to protest against the Aarey land being used for the purpose of building a car shed for Mumbai Metro 3. As the Bombay High Court upheld the permission granted by the Brihanmumbai Mumbai Corporation’s (BMC) Tree Authority in October, over 2,185 trees were razed overnight. This led to a petition in the SC that ordered a freeze on the cutting of any more trees till further orders. While Uddhav Thackeray asserted that a single leaf of Aarey would not be cut after taking over as the CM in November 2019, a report submitted by a 4-member panel constituted by the MVA government in January 2020 recommended that Aarey was the best possible site for the construction of the car shed as the other alternative places were not financially viable.

On October 11, 2020, Thackeray announced that the car shed will be shifted to government land in Kanjurmarg and no cost will be incurred for the purpose. However, a division bench of Bombay High Court comprising Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni stayed the transfer of the 102-acres land in Kanjurmarg to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for the construction of the car shed. The HC, which was hearing the Centre’s writ petition filed through the deputy salt commissioner, adjourned the matter till February 2021. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade insists that the land allocated for the car shed in Kanjurmarg belongs to the Union government. 

Read: Bombay HC Stays Metro Car Shed Project In Kanjurmarg; Asks MMRDA To Maintain Status Quo