The Aarey Issue: Climate and Environment concerns

Gujarati | Tamil

The Aarey Milk Colony came into being in 1949 when the area became a government-owned dairy farm. A part of the Aarey land was opened for commercial purposes in 2014 when the plan to construct a Metro car shed at Aarey was introduced by the government. The plan was to build a metro car shed for the upcoming 33.5 km underground Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ Metro project at Aarey. The issue had become a bone of contention later between the then BJP-led Maharashtra government, under then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Shena with Yuva Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray in the lead. 

On October 4, 2019, the Bombay High Court dismissed petitions by environmentalists and civil society bodies to declare Aarey Colony a forest and refused to stop the felling of more than 2,500 trees by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL). The Supreme Court later gave a restraining order to prevent authorities from felling more trees and ordered status quo in Aarey but it was too late as the trees that needed to be cut, had already been cut. The MMRCL subsequently stated that the required felling of 2,141 trees had already been done.

AAREY – A FOREST OR NOT?

The section of people including many of the political leaders who support the felling of trees at Aarey Colony to make way for a Metro car shed claim that Aarey is not a forest. The Maharashtra government had told the Bombay High Court that Aarey Colony could not be declared a forest just because of its greenery.

In November 2019, Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA assumed power and declared about one-fifth (600-acre) of the 3,166-acre Aarey Colony as a Reserved Forest. The new government also scrapped the plan of the previous BJP-led government to build the metro car shed at Aarey. This became an important milestone in terms of recognition of the Aarey land, even if partly, as a forest.  

Meanwhile, a large section of the public, environmentalists, and civil society bodies have refused to cater to the “Aarey is not a forest” argument as they believe Aarey is definitely a forest and must be protected at all costs from human encroachment. This has given rise to debates over definitions of a forest and also the nature of ownership or classification of the Aarey land. 

It must be noted here that a past Supreme Court judgment had said that the main purpose of checking further deforestation should be upheld without getting much into ownerships or classifications. The court also observed that the word “forest” must be understood in terms of its dictionary meaning.

The Supreme Court judgment (TN Godavarman Thirumulpad Vs the Union of India) delivered on 12 December 1996, said, “The Forest Conservation Act, 1980, was enacted with a view to check further deforestation which ultimately results in ecological imbalance; and therefore, the provisions made therein for the conservation of forests and for matters connected therewith, must apply to all forests irrespective of the nature of ownership or classification thereof.”

The characteristics of the ecosystem in Aarey Colony point to the fact that though it has not been officially declared a forest, the area has all the necessary qualities to qualify as one.  According to a study titled ‘Aarey Milk Colony, Mumbai as Forest Territory – A Status Report’, in which the flora and fauna of Aarey were studied to verify whether it falls in the category of “Forest”, it was found that the Aarey colony area was originally an extension of Sanjay Gandhi National Park and can be regarded as a ‘forest’

Aarey is home to highly biodiverse scrub forests, rocky hillocks, seasonal freshwater marshes, and grasslands besides containing endangered animals like leopards, pythons, and rusty-spotted cats (Adhya 2015; Shinde 2017). 

Aarey also provides fodder for around 30,000 cattle and thus acts as an important source of local livelihoods. The residents of Aarey depend on it in terms of cattle grazing, firewood, and various forest products (Parthasarathy 2011). 

The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has extended a loan of Rs 5,000 crore to Mumbai Metro. According to a Down To Earth report, the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report sent to JICA has no mention of the season and duration of the biodiversity survey conducted by MMRDA. The DTE report further states that the JICA report mentions the area under question as having no dense forest cover. It has been further brought to notice by the DTE report that a significant part of the metro shed land is dense forest and the state forest department has a pending request to reclaim the land. 

THE METRO CAR SHED SITE OF AAREY

In a significant turn of events, the Metro car shed project was revived by the recently formed Eknath Shinde government after it came to power on 30 June 2022 in Maharashtra with Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announcing that the project will resume in the Aarey site. He further added it does not fall under the eco-sensitive zone and is not a forest area. 

Also, the Supreme Court had earlier dismissed an appeal against the National Green Tribunal’s order to exclude 407 acres in the Aarey Colony area, which consists of the Metro car shed project site, as an Ecologically Sensitive Zone. 

What had been overlooked here perhaps is the fact that Aarey is a contiguous green area and such division within it for commercial projects will hamper the sanctity of the biodiversity of the entire Aarey land that now also comprises a reserved forest. Experts, Shyam Asolekar and Rakesh Kumar had earlier noted this. Shyam Asolekar, professor at the Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, IIT-Bombay, and Rakesh Kumar, director at the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute were earlier appointed members of the technical advisory committee by the Devendra Fadnavis government to find an alternative site to Aarey. 

Asolekar and Kumar further highlighted that the proposed car shed site at Aarey was right next to the catchment area of the Mithi river. “If the car shed is constructed, then during monsoon the water retention ability of the plot will be lost to concretization. Hence, all the excess run-off water will find its way in Mithi, which will increase the risk of downstream flooding in Chakala and the international report,” read the note, reported Times of India. 

“Aarey has grasslands and shrub vegetation too from which streams arise. You cannot build drains and channel this water into the sea, it just won’t work,” said Amrita Bhattacharjee of the Aarey Conservation Group while speaking to The Wire. She also stressed that the tribals living in Aarey would face displacement if more development occurs in the area. 

Aarey has an Adivasi population of over 10,000 comprising the Katkaris, Mahadev Kolis, Mallar Kolis, Warlis, and other tribals living in 27 tribal padas. They rear poultry, and goats and cultivate over a dozen varieties of crops including banana, jackfruit, and paddy. They are heavily dependent on the forest for their daily livelihood. Tribals from multiple hamlets in Aarey Colony had earlier filed claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 for individual forest rights claims and also community forest rights claims.

Wildlife biologist Anand Pendharkar who is also the CEO of Sprouts, an organization focusing on wildlife conservation and awareness said to The Wire that the location chosen for the metro car shed is a breeding site of the Indian rock python, a species protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The area is frequented by another Schedule I animal, the leopard, he added. 

HOW REALISTIC ARE THE CARBON REDUCTION CLAIMS OF THE METRO?

With the revival of the Metro car shed project by the Eknath Shinde government, protests against the project have got revived in Maharashtra. Supporters of the Metro car shed project at Aarey cited a previous study conducted by the Metro and court orders to claim that the proposed ‘metro lines would take less than 80 days to help CO2 sequestration that the trees would manage in their 20-year lifespan.’

It has been claimed that the carbon dioxide sequestration of 2,646 trees for their entire lifetime, calculated at 12,79,062 kg, would be compensated by 3,948 fully loaded trips on the Metro line.

(The reduction in emission is calculated with the belief that these metro commuters have shifted from buses and other road vehicles. Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing CO2 so that its presence in the atmosphere lessens.)

While comparing an entirely new metro line of 33.5 km to just 2646 trees in terms of CO2 generation/sequestration seems ridiculous, the point that is being overlooked in the above-calculated emission scenario is the CO2 emission in terms of ‘power required’ to set up and operate a new metro rail line. It must be noted here that coal power plants account for nearly 75% of annual electricity generation in India.

According to a 2018 study, Assessment of emission reduction potential of Mumbai metro rail, the 11.4 km long Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro line carrying around 312,000 passengers daily helped in reducing 22.7 tonnes of CO2 emissions per day but the same Metro also releases 75.6 tonnes of CO2 every day. These emissions are made at the source of electricity generation which is mainly coal-powered units. 

The Metro has claimed that the 33.5 km long MML-3 metro line will achieve a 99 lakh kg per year reduction in CO2 in 2041 which is equal to a reduction of 9900 tonnes of CO2 in a year. Meanwhile, the 2018 study mentioned above has found that the 11.4 km long Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro line releases 75.6 tonnes of CO2 every day which comes to 27,594 tonnes of CO2 in a year. Though it’s an example, the stark difference between the reduction of 9900 and the emission of 27,594 tonnes of CO2 is apparent here. 

Another 2020 study after “an evaluation based on the life cycle of public transport systems (finds) that a metro system generates more carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions/passenger kilometers (PKM) as compared to a BRT system.”

HERE’S WHAT EXPERTS SAY

We reached out to our in-house expert, climate scientist, Dr. Partha J Das. Here’s what he said on the topic:

One of the several objectives of promoting and expanding the metro rail system in India is to reduce the emission of GHGs and other air pollutants like CO, Particulate Matter (PM), and various Hydrocarbons. There are several studies including the already mentioned by Soni and Chandel (2018) that have shown that although the operationalization of the metro rail system has served to reduce the air pollutants to a large extent, it has not been able to achieve the GHG reduction goal satisfactorily, especially in the case of CO2.

For example, the study by Sharma et al. (2014) concluded that in 2014, the Delhi metro was also unable to fulfill its GHG mitigation goals. In both cases, it was expected that the metro systems would reduce larger amounts of CO2 emissions and achieve the GHG emission reduction target, as more and more people use the metro, especially as a replacement of not only public buses but also a large chunk of the private cars, which are more responsible for GHG emissions in Indian transport scenario. 
However, there are recent studies that point to better emission efficiency of the metro system and improved emission savings. We can hope that in the case of Mumbai, it is only a matter of time for the Metro management before it adopts clean technologies to reduce the emission levels and enhance its emission reduction potential.