Shifting the Metro depot alone will not save Aarey

The protests against the car depot for the Colaba-SEEPZ Metro inside Aarey Milk Colony have brought together disparate groups like environmentalists, local citizens, students and politicians.

The protests have focused on a 33-hectare (ha) wooded plot that will accommodate the car depot, but Aarey Milk Colony is spread over 3,160 acres (1,281 ha) government land of which more than 1,400 ha has been leased or transferred to various government departments and institutions, including the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Board, State Reserve Police, the government-run Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari (Film City), apart from the dairies. Wooded areas, pastures, water bodies and gardens cover around 1,740 ha. Over the last four decades parcels of Aarey have been hived off for public cemeteries and a housing colony. The car depot will come up near the southern boundary of Aarey, near a large electrical substation and a busy road.

There are 27 adivasi padas, or tribal hamlets that predate the city. The villages have around 10,000 residents. The Forest Rights Act, 2006, protects the residency of these adivasi families who are allowed to cultivate plots passed on from their ancestors. Six of these villages could be affected by the construction of a zoo.

But the biggest threat to Aarey is slums. The slums date back from the early 1950s when the dairy department created Aarey Milk Colony to increase the supply of milk to Mumbai. The dairy department allowed workers to build homes near the cattle sheds. Since then the workers’ settlements have grown into large slums as families from other parts of the city moved in. There is no data on land encroached by slums, but citizens’ groups estimate that more than 30,000 people live in the slums. This gives Aarey Milk Colony a population density of nearly 3,100 people per square km – high by standards of a forest.

A member of a group opposing the car shed had told this journalist that slum dwellers have moved into the tribal villages and are claiming forest rights, even as the municipal corporation and the dairy department ignore the growing encroachments.

Aarey’s fate is precarious: the car depot will take away 3% of the area; even if the car depot is shifted out, 97% of the area has no protection. The area, now home to a diverse bird and animal life, is one of the last natural areas in the city outside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). It should be preserved: a group of wildlife biologists, who have studied the Aarey’s ecology, have estimated that the area has 48 species of reptiles and 12 amphibian species. There are 77 butterfly species and mammals like leopard, deer, boar, mongoose, jungle cats, among others. A former CEO of Aarey, who spoke to this newspaper, warned that the area could turn into a concrete jungle by 2030, with the area’s wildlife disappearing.

Groups opposing the car shed have argued that the area is forest land. An environment group had approached the Bombay high court with documents that suggest Aarey is part of 2,076 ha marked as “unclassed forest’ in the SGNP, which was transferred to the forest department in 1969. Of this, 575 ha are to be kept aside for a recreational zone while the rest of the land was to remain a part of the national park. This could mean that the area has 1,500 ha of former forest land. This argument has found no acceptance, with a 2018 court judgement ruling that the area was not a forest.

The government has notified 59.46 sq. km area (19.25 sq km forest land and the rest non-forest) as an eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) around SGNP. This includes parts of Aarey. Except for this plan, the area has no legal protection from construction, putting it under constant threat of construction. None of the politicians who have joined the protestors have spoken about the slums or the other constructions inside Aarey. The protestors should seek protection for all of Aarey; otherwise it is doomed.