Following months of protests from local tribesmen and environmentalist, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday, 11 October, said that the controversial metro car shed is being shifted from Aarey Colony to Kanjurmarg in Mumbai.
Addressing a webcast, Chief Minister Thackeray said that the metro car shed will now be shifted to Kanjurmarg, where “the land will be available at zero rate.”
The building that has already been constructed at Aarey, at a cost of Rs 100 crore, will be used for some other purpose, Chief Minister Thackeray added.
Maintaining that tribal rights won’t be infringed upon, Chief Minister Thackeray said that the 600 acres that had earlier been declared as forest land have now been revised to 800 acres.
"Biodiversity in Aarey needs to be to conserved and protected. Nowhere is there an 800-acre jungle in an urban set up. Mumbai has a natural forest cover," Livemint quoted Thackeray as saying.
In September, Chief Minister Thackeray had asked the state home department to withdraw cases registered last year against those protesting the metro project in Aarey, on account of large-scale felling of trees.
(With inputs from Livemint)
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