As many as 1,244 trees are set to get affected for the second phase of the Mumbai Coastal Road set to be built at an estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore. While this high-speed corridor will connect Versova in the western suburbs with Dahisar, officials from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the civic body will approach the Bombay High Court (HC) seeking approval and only after the HC gives its go ahead will the cutting of trees be initiated. According to the BMC documents, around 118 trees will be cut and 697 trees will be transplanted to make way for a north bound tunnel of the coastal road that will connect Mindspace in Malad with Charkop Creek that are part of the packages C and D of the coastal road. Furthermore, 136 more trees will be cut and 293 trees will be transplanted to make way for an elevated connector and traffic interchange that will connect Bangur Nagar in Goregaon with Mindspace in Malad, which is a part of package B of the project. All the trees that will be affected are located between Goregaon and Malad. In total, there are 1,612 trees at these two project sites, of which 1,244 will be affected. "These trees are falling in the alignment of two of the most important stretches of the coastal road, which include packages B, C and D. These packages will include the underground tunnel, flyovers as well as vehicular interchanges that will be key components for the project," said an official. In total, the coastal road has been divided into six packages (A, B, C, D, E and F). The first package will connect Versova to Bangur Nagar (Goregaon), the second package will connect Goregaon with Mindspace, the packages C and D will comprise two underground tunnels (north and south bound) that will connect Mindspace and Charkop. The Package E will connect Charkop with Gorai and the final package F will connect Gorai and Dahisar. In April this year, the BMC had stated that 9,000 mangroves will be cut for the coastal road. Civic officials said all the authorities will carry out compensatory plantations for the green cover that has been lost. In September, the BMC also finalised a 15-acre plot for setting up a mangrove nursery where compensatory plantation will be taken up. “In total, our plan is to carry out compensatory plantation for up to three times the number of trees that will be lost. While some plantations will be carried out on the lands that we are acquiring for setting up nurseries, plantations will also be carried out on the pathways and islands of the road," the official said. “We have carried out an environment impact assessment (EIA) to ensure minimum number of trees are damaged. The coastal road is important and so are the trees. Therefore, the alignment of the road is planned in such a way that very few trees are affected because the green cover present in the Malad, Gorai and Borivali areas is huge and if it were not planned properly, then the loss of trees would have been much more," the official said. So far, the civic authorities have received clearances from the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), the state forest department and the mangrove cell. Once the high court’s approval comes through, the authorities will secure all the other permission needed for the project. Phase two of the coastal road will be a series of underground tunnels, cable stayed bridge and vehicular interchanges that will improve north-south connectivity. The coastal road will also provide connectivity with the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR)—an east-west connector that is also being constructed by the BMC.
