Mrudul Godbole
04-01-2010, 10:39 PM
The forest department has shown its reservation in giving clearance to Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project. The road was to pass through Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). The officials are of the view that it would ruin the forest and disturb the natural habitat of wildlife.
The residents of Mulund had been eagerly looking forward to the construction of GMLR as they now have to use either Ghodbunder Road (Thane) or a narrow road of Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon to reach Borivili. Says Monali Thakur, resident of Mulund, “They should have planned it out in proper a manner.”
According to an earlier plan suggested by a traffic planning expert, this road was to be built from SGNP. This proposal, however, was shot down by environmentalists. The road was to be developed by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development
Authority (MMRDA), but they handed it over to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Says MMRDA chief Ratnakar Gaikwad, "The BMC in their development plan had proposed development of the GMLR. It is the duty of the BMC to develop the road. We have done our work of constructing the GMLR extension."
Then plans were made for an eight-lane road from Aarey Colony towards Mulund. An elevated road would be built from the BMC’s Bhandup waterworks complex over the pipelines. Informs Rajesh Wadhwa, engineer working on the project,
“Earlier also there were reservations because everybody anticipated that the Ministry of Environment and Forests may not clear it as Bhandup waterworks complex is built on land leased out by the forest department. The work however, had begun from Goregaon and Mulund ends.
Says S V Joshi, chief engineer - roads, BMC, “The forest department has shown its reservations now as they are worried about the natural habitat and forest cover of the area. We cannot carry out any work on the project because the forest department has not given us the clearance. It can be said that this project will never take off, as it passes through a national park wherein no development work can take place."
Link - http://www.mumbaipluses.com/mulundpowaiplus/index.aspx?page=article§id=1&contentid=20100102200912311251469514b5b676b§xslt=&comments=true
The residents of Mulund had been eagerly looking forward to the construction of GMLR as they now have to use either Ghodbunder Road (Thane) or a narrow road of Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon to reach Borivili. Says Monali Thakur, resident of Mulund, “They should have planned it out in proper a manner.”
According to an earlier plan suggested by a traffic planning expert, this road was to be built from SGNP. This proposal, however, was shot down by environmentalists. The road was to be developed by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development
Authority (MMRDA), but they handed it over to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Says MMRDA chief Ratnakar Gaikwad, "The BMC in their development plan had proposed development of the GMLR. It is the duty of the BMC to develop the road. We have done our work of constructing the GMLR extension."
Then plans were made for an eight-lane road from Aarey Colony towards Mulund. An elevated road would be built from the BMC’s Bhandup waterworks complex over the pipelines. Informs Rajesh Wadhwa, engineer working on the project,
“Earlier also there were reservations because everybody anticipated that the Ministry of Environment and Forests may not clear it as Bhandup waterworks complex is built on land leased out by the forest department. The work however, had begun from Goregaon and Mulund ends.
Says S V Joshi, chief engineer - roads, BMC, “The forest department has shown its reservations now as they are worried about the natural habitat and forest cover of the area. We cannot carry out any work on the project because the forest department has not given us the clearance. It can be said that this project will never take off, as it passes through a national park wherein no development work can take place."
Link - http://www.mumbaipluses.com/mulundpowaiplus/index.aspx?page=article§id=1&contentid=20100102200912311251469514b5b676b§xslt=&comments=true