PEOPLE ALL OVER India will remember the massive protests by environmentalists against the Silent Valley dam project of the Kerala government a decade ago. Irrecoverable damage to the ecosystem was the perceived danger. Environmental Impact Assessment was carried out by the Environmental Resources Research Center there. Luckily the plan was shelved and flora and fauna were spared.

 

Recently, the Narmada Valley Dam has been in the limelight and still hogs headlines due to the environmental and human habitat concerns. The recent hue and cry over the Peddar Road flyover plans caught the government’s attention because of the celebrities involved. In a majority of cases, no such protest took place and the state governments went ahead to build massive highways cleaving through existing residential areas.

Apart from the loss of privacy, concerns such as noise, smoke, fume and pollution have been ignored. JJ Hospital, Dadar TT, Sion Circle, Parel flyovers are the recent cases.

 

In Thane, too, Ghodbunder Road, which was upto now a two-lane road, has been transformed into an eight-lane highway (SH42) connecting NH4 (Mumbai-Pune) with NH8 (Mumbai- Ahmedabad).

The nodal authority developed the MSRDC highway and threw it open to traffic in 2002. Tolls are collected for the use of this highway and in 2005; the average daily traffic was 11,065 vehicles, out of which 8,217 were the multi-axle heavy vehicles carrying containers (TOI dated 26/10/2005).

During the course of this transformation, the life of thousands of residents living along this road has been thrown into shambles. Noise pollution generated by powerful engines, containers clanging on the truck beds, indiscriminate use of power horns, dust generated by crumbling cement and exposed dirt are a daily menace to the citizens. Such is the extent of lack of planning that there is absolutely no accessible road along this highway for the thousands of Thaneites. They have to come to the highway to visit nearby shops and markets.

 

The condition of Mumbai forces one to raise the question: Should not an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) study be made mandatory for human habitation too?

Related Articles:
Asian cities overtake Mumbai
The Urban Chaos