For commuters between Mumbai and Vadodara, the future looks brighter with reduced travel time thanks to the National Highway Authority of India's (NHAIs) ambitious Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway Project (also called the Eastern Peripheral Expressway). But, the environment will pay a heavy price for this as the project will swallow up 181 hectares of forest between Vasai and Talasari in Maharashtra, equivalent to the size of 70 international football fields.

Environmentalists have raised concerns over the rate at which green cover is being sacrificed for infrastructure projects. According to the proposal submitted to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) for an Environment Clearance, a total of 181.6506 hectare forest land along the 78.38 km-long stretch between Talasari and Vasai will have to make way for the eight-lane expressway which is part of the 379-km greenfield expressway between Vadodara and Mumbai under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase VI and the Phase II.