Mumbai Coastal Road Project - An Ecological Disaster

The US $1.7 billion mumbai coastal road to be built by reclaiming the inter-tidal Western Coast is an ecological and livelihood disaster in the making. Here’s why

- Sarita Fernandes

Expressing concern about the degrading state of the environment, the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, Pradeep Nandrajog, on June 18, passed a notepad to lawyers with a caricature of a human being from the future affected with deformities as a result of pollution. Nandrajog was hearing eight petitions challenging the alleged lack of approvals for the Mumbai coastal road project. And on July 16, the high court quashed the coastal regulation zone clearances granted to the city’s civic body and ordered construction to stop.

The US $1.7 billion Mumbai coastal road project is one of the most expensive infrastructure development projects stretching 35.6 km and connecting the entire western coast of Mumbai city. The project aims to create 90 hectares of land by reclaiming the inter-tidal western coast of the city’s shoreline. But citizens’ groups and environmentalists have raised concerns that the project will destroy the region’s unique ecology and the livelihoods of traditional communities who depend on the inter-tidal zone for fishing.

The project has been surrounded by controversies ever since the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) gave environmental clearance in 2017. The ministry submitted ambiguous reasons to give the clearance.