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Mumbai: The Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority‘s (MCZMA) recent decision to allow unipole advertisement hoardings along coastal road has stunned citizens, with activists claiming the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was aware of the conditions set by the Union ministry for environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) for granting permission for reclamation to build the coastal road.
In May 2019, the then municipal commissioner, Praveen Pardeshi, had issued a circular warning all authorities responsible for the approval of development permission against any commercial or residential development on the landward side of roads till the existing High Tide Line of the coastal road.
The reclaimed open area, as stated in the 2019 circular, was proposed to be used as a garden, open green space, cycle track, jogging track, butterfly garden, amusement park, promenade, road median as open green space, BRTS bus depot, etc., without permitting other developments on the landward side of such roads until the existing High Tide Line of the coastal road. The reclaimed open area is itself on the landward side of the coastal road.
The MCZMA’s nod to unipole advertisement hoardings near Tata Garden, Amarsons Garden, and Lala Lajpatrai Garden on the landward side of the coastal road therefore stands in clear violation of the norms. Activists have demanded that the MoEFCC intervene in the matter and stay the MCZMA’s order, as they fear the hoardings will come up in the reclaimed open area.
Pardeshi had stated in the circular that it shall be scrupulously followed since “it is deemed to be considered as an undertaking given by BMC to MoEFCC.”
Advocate Godfrey Pimenta said that in 2022, the Supreme Court, in its order in a Special Leave Petition with regard to the coastal road, specifically referred to the Specific Condition A(v) of the MoEFCC’s CRZ clearance not to allow any commercial or residential development. “By allowing the hoardings, which constitute a commercial activity along the coastal road, the BMC and the MCZMA are in contempt of the SC order as well,” he said.
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