Goregaon-mulund Link Road (GMLR)

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had applied to MOEFCC, seeking EC for GMLR project on June 29, 2017.

In September2017, BMC had complied with certain conditions laid down by EAC and submitted additional details as part of this regulatory process. The Terms of Reference (TOR) were obtained in January 2018. It was only in April 2018 that the matter was delisted by the Union environment ministry, essentially exempting it from EC and thus an EIA as well.

Documents show that this was done at BMC’S behest. In the minutes of their 187th meeting – held on April 12, 2018 – EAC noted, “As the proponent did not provide correct information at the time of submission of online application, the ministry considered the proposal and issued TOR. However, now the proponent has informed that the said project does not require prior EC because it is only a development plan road of BMC and does not even form part of any expressway or state/national highway.” The exemption has also allowed BMC to skip certain essential conditions and studies which had otherwise been imposed by MOEFCC. These include a public hearing, a cumulative impact assessment of all the projects being planned within, around and through

SGNP and a separate study on the project’s impact on Tulsi and Vihar lakes, which are about a kilometre away from the tunnels’ proposed alignment.

“By allowing this project to be positioned as a development road, the ministry has in turn allowed BMC to bypass essential safeguards. The tunnels are still within the boundary of a protected area, and so should mandatorily be treated as a Category-a project. This is not just a development road, but a fairly sophisticated infrastructure project that will pollute and disturb one of the city’s last remaining silent zones. It is a situation unique to Mumbai because no other city is planning to disturb the protected areas for the sake of private car owners,” said Stalin D, director of non-governmental organisation (NGO) Vanashakti.

An official with BMC’S bridges department, seeking anonymity of name, pointed out that the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has been appointed to conduct a three-year study of the project’s impact at the instruction of NBWL, and that possible impact on the aquifers of Tulsi and Vihar lakes have been duly