Environmentalists secure 7-hectare wetland facing extinction in Navi Mumbai

In a New Year gift for Kharghar node in Navi Mumbai, environmentalists have succeeded in securing a nearly seven-hectare wetland which was facing extinction due to landfill.

This was part of a 10-hectare wetland in Sector 36, a portion of which was already reclaimed by CIDCO for creating a housing society.

As truckloads of earth was being dumped on the banks of the wetland, environmentalists raised an alarm and NatConnect Foundation sent an SOS to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC), the Maharashtra Chief Minister and the Bombay High Court appointed Wetlands Committee.

“With collective action, CIDCO Executive Engineer Girish Raghuvamshi inspected the area with environmentalists and assured that the pond would be protected,” said NatConnect director B N Kumar.

The landfill would be confined to an already plotted area by CIDCO, Raghuvamshi assured the green activists.

Also Read | Landfill or processing plant? Waste management firm leans towards latter

Jyoti Nadkarni of Kharghar Wetlands and Hill forum pointed out that the debris would endanger the waterbody while being levelled. Raghuvamshi instructed his Deputy EE Amit Chavan to ensure that the landfill work does not affect the wetland in any way.

The officials also agreed to the suggestion to barricade the wetland to prevent any further encroachment. Nadkarni said CIDCO must put up sign boards to prevent debris and garbage being dumped into the wetlands at Sectors 16, 17, 25 and 27 as well

Activist Nareshchandra Singh asked CIDCO to have the waterbody cleaned as a vast stretch of weeds is affecting its health. “This is not a monsoon water body and we have been seeing water here all through the year,” Singh said.

Meanwhile, MOEFCC responded to NatConnect's complaint and asked the State Environment department to act. CM Eknath Shinde instructed the Urban development department Principal Secretary Bhushan Gargrani to look into the issue as NatConnect complained that the perennial water body, listed in the National Wetland Atlas, faces extinction thanks to continuous burial by CIDCO.

It is significant that the Kharghar wetland called Kutuk Bandhan figures in the list prepared by the Raigad District collector. This wetland bears the code number 13327, yet CIDCO has not cared about it. But now hopefully the remaining seven hectares would be saved, Kumar said.

Almost a fourth of the wetland has already been buried in 2011 and CIDCO created a housing society, said Nadkarni.

Both Nadkarni and Singh were members of a Collector-appointed committee that documented the wetlands three years ago.

“We are seeing how the planner has been allotting wetlands for so-called development which is already causing destruction in the Uran area,” he said. Reckless landfill has interfered with the natural flow of tidal water and caused unseasonal flooding of homes and paddy fields yet the district administration has remained a mute spectator,” added Kumar.