Mumbai: Metro III plan will not change, says MMRC chairman

Despite growing opposition to the Metro Line III from both project affected people and environmentalists who are demanding that its alignment be changed Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation MMRC chairman Ashwini Bhide made it clear yesterday that it is no longer possible to make any changes to the plans at this junctureHundreds joined the fight to save 2298 trees in Aarey Colony that will make way for the Metro yard site The strong opposition to the plan prompted the CM to instate a special panel to search for alternative sites for the car depot File picMetro III has met with resistance from several quarters most notably from environmentalists who objected to plans to axe 2298 trees in Aarey Colony to build the car depot there as well as south Mumbai residents who fear that it will gobble up open spaces apart from displacing many from their homesmidday has been covering both issues steadily and had reported earlier that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had instructed a special panel to search for alternative sites lsquoFind other sites for Metro car depot CM tells expertsrsquo March 3What about AareyWhen asked about the yard sitersquos relocation however Bhide skirted the issue and only said ldquoThe CM has appointed an expert committee to look into the issue of the car depot at Aarey and suggest the possible alternatives It will not be right on my part to make any comment regarding the issueAll I want to say is that at present there is no work that is being carried out at the car depot siterdquo Bhide was speaking at a media interaction jointly organised by the Mumbai Press Club and the NGO Mumbai First where the pros and cons of the ColabaBandraSeepz Metro corridor were being discussedTransport experts citizens representatives of project affected people PAPs environmentalists and journalists took part in the twohour interaction where Bhide also made a presentation about the project She tried to explain how the project would transform the lives of people travelling in Mumbai and would help in infrastructure development but citizens did not seem satisfiedlsquoToo latersquoWhen a south Mumbai resident suggested that the projectrsquos alignment be changed at the southern end of the corridor so that more people can benefit from it Bhide said it was not possibleldquoAt this stage it is not possible to make any changes in alignment because we will have to go back to the drawing board again which is not possible now All I want to say is that the project has been planned keeping all the aspects in the mind The government has conducted a lot of studies after which this alignment was finalisedrdquo she saidAnother person questioned whether the authorities had taken citizens into consideration while planning the project to which Bhide responded ldquoRight from the start everything related to the project was in public domain and it was only after consulting the public that the alignment was finalisedThere cannot be any changes to the alignment now but optimisations can be made based on suggestions that are possible to implementrdquo She further explained in her presentation that the MMRC had originally considered five locations for the car shedrsquos site Backbay Reclamation in Colaba an underground facility below Mahalakshmi Racecourse the MMRDA exhibition ground at BKC the Mumbai University area in Kalina and Aarey Milk ColonyldquoIn Colaba adequate land was not available and we would have had to reclaim land which the MoEF Ministry of Environment Forests does not allow In Mahalakshmi and BKC there were other problems In Kalina Mumbai University has plans for expansion and so we had only one option Aareyrdquo Bhide added