Much to the chagrin of environmentalists, citizen groups, and local fisherfolk who have had their lives disrupted. While environmental activists believe the project will irretrievably harm the ecology, the fisherfolk fear they won’t be provided adequate compensation for the loss of livelihood.
Over the past four months, their lives have been upturned by the ongoing work to reclaim the sea for the Coastal Road project, and they fear what it’ll yet bring.
“Severe injustice has been done to us. They’ve taken away our homes and our livelihood,” says Ganesh Armadeva, a fisherman who has five boats in the area. “We aren’t getting income from anywhere. It has been so many years since our country has got freedom, but we still don’t have the right to speak up.”
However, the state government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, unsurprisingly, hail the project as a gamechanger for the megacity.
Though the BMC had been issued clearances to reclaim 90 hectares of the sea, it claimed last year that it needed 21 additional hectares. In response, an expert committee of the union environment ministry approved an amendment to the clearance for the project. Once it is ratified by the central government, the BMC will have the authority to reclaim all 111 hectares.
The reclamation work is changing the flow of the water and shifting the tides, the fisherfolk point out, and this will harm Mumbai during monsoons when the city tends to get flooded.
“Our beaches will go underwater, the currents will change, the shoreline will start eroding faster, there will be loss of biodiversity, and the livelihood of fishermen will be destroyed.