For Mumbai's water supply, yet another dam in the Western Ghats set to submerge forests & villages

Time of India

5 hours ago

Govt Clears Move To Cut 3 Lakh Trees, Relocate 6 Palghar Villages, Flood 844 Hectares To Bring Water From Gargai River To City
The river Gargai, a tributary of Vaitarna, comes cascading down the Western Ghats and flows through the Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary, a 320-sq-km sprawl of dense forest in Palghar district tagged as a biodiversity hotspot.
'Both the wildlife sanctuary and the reserved forest are high quality and not degraded forests. In an assessment we carried out over eight days in 2021 we identified over 400 species of flora, fauna and fungi in the wildlife sanctuary,' says environmentalist Kedar Gore of the Corbett Foundation.
The river flows through a valley with steep slopes, the force of its flow cutting a deep gorge. This is in the north of the sanctuary where several perennial streams originate high up in misty mountain ranges declared as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2012.
One of the major watersheds of India, the Western Ghats in Palghar and Thane alone are home to 12 dams. Most of them are reservoir dams supplying water to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, which have submerged large swathes of tropical forest.
Now Maharashtra govt has plans to build yet another of them.
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If all goes to plan, Mumbai will have a new dam by 2030 to augment water supply. The Gargai proposal, scrapped by Maha Vikas Aghadi govt in 2022 as it requires cutting an estimated three lakh trees, has been revived by Mahayuti govt.
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In fact, three lakh trees will be cut/transplanted for dam construction and another three lakh needs to be cleared to resettle villages affected by submergence.
In April this year, the state wildlife board approved the project and chief minister
Devendra Fadnavis
who heads the board instructed the forest dept to present a 'flawless' proposal before the National Wildlife Board (NWB) to expedite clearances. A forest official said since it is a drinking water project it will not require environmental clearance, but since it involves acquisition of forest land for dam construction and relocation of villages, forest clearance is a must as also clearance from the NWB since the dam will be built in a wildlife sanctuary.
A forest official said the Gargai flows through a valley and dam construction will require cutting trees, same as for the dam, said a forest
officer.
BMC's additional municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar, in-charge of projects, said 2% area of Tansa sanctuary will be impacted by the dam, which comprises 658 hectares of forest land and 186 hectares of land owned by tribals. A total of 844 hectares. 'Only two villages are going to be submerged but we are shifting the other four too.
Also, Nashik-Wada state highway which passes through the sanctuary will shift. Once the highway goes, there will be no access to the sanctuary.
The land will all be handed over to the forest dept and this will ensure the forest is regenerated,' he said.
However, Kedar Gore of the Corbett Foundation pointed out that the forest sought to be cut is dense and teeming with wildlife. 'All of this will be submerged by the dam,' he said.
'Will Mumbaikars who fought on the roads and went right up to the Supreme Court to save over 2,000 trees in Aarey Colony come out in defence of these six lakh trees?' asked a forest official.
Environmentalist Debi Goenka said BMC needs to focus on arresting water loss due to theft and leakage rather than building new dams which are an environmental disaster. 'Mumbai today receives 4,000 million litres daily (mld), but over 30% is lost in distribution and theft by tanker mafia.
The BMC, after all these losses, can provide 300 litres per capita per day (lpcd) but is actually providing 90-135 lpcd to authorised buildings and 45lpcd to the slums.
It is clear the water tanker mafia is benefitting from all of this and this needs to end,' he said.
Another argument against the dam is that MMR's population is likely to plateau in the next few decades. A govt trees on steep slopes. 'BMC is talking of transplanting two lakh trees.
Cutting trees on steep slopes is dangerous and there is bound to be loss of human lives,' warned the official. He also warned that the forest is dense with an abundance of wildlife.
Gram sabhas of the six tribal villages to be relocated gave their consent around 2018 on condition that they be given fertile land in exchange and not be relocated to an urban area. Budhi Devram Jhugre, a resident of Khodade village, said her family owns nine acres near the river where they grow rice, millets, vegetables which sustains her large family.
Last year her younger son was given a house under the govt Gharkul yojana in the village.
'He is currently working in the city but we do not want to live there. We are told our land will be under water when the dam is built. There will be no access to the village as there will be water all around, so we have to go elsewhere. We want land for land,' she said.
The villages are proposed to be relocated to land owned by Forest Corporation of India at Desai village, 2 kms from the dam site.
But this land is reserved forest and to rehabilitate 2,500 families it will need to be cleared of three lakh report in Sept 2024 said over the next 25 years Greater Mumbai's population is likely to remain more or less flat (projected to reach 13.7 million by 2047) with its share of the MMR population dropping from 50% to 36%.
However, BMC's Bangar said Mumbai's overall population is growing even if it is falling in the island city.
'Besides, there is a floating population. Everyday eight million people travel by suburban trains. We will know the actual figures when the census is done, but in 2011 population in the suburbs had grown by 3.9%,' he said.
He said the BMC is looking at water sources outside the Western Ghats for the city's future requirements. 'The desalination plant proposal is still alive but it will augment supply by only 10% for now,' he said. 'We need to augment our water supply to serve the growing needs of the people,' said Bangar. He said compensatory afforestation will be carried out in Chandrapur district, adjoining the Tadoba wildlife sanctuary.
'The forest dept still has to give us an additional 250 hectares for compensatory afforestation,' he said.