MUMBAI: Just a few months before the Center opposed the state’s offer to move the Metro wagon shed to Kanjurmarg, the Union Ministry of Commerce may have been preparing to hand over the same land for the Metro depot. 6.
In a letter dated July 31, 2020, Undersecretary PK Pattnaik wrote to the salt commissioner: “You are requested to conduct a joint survey and submit a joint survey report within a week (along with the revised market value of land, if there is any change in the land area after a joint survey), so that this department can prepare the proposed cabinet note. ”
The subject of Pattnaik’s letter was “Transfer of 43.76 hectares of land from the Department of Salt under CTS No. 657A and 853 of Kanjur Village to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for the construction of a deposit Cars for Mumbai Metro Line 6 ”. On November 1, 2019, the commissioner of the MMRDA, RA Rajeev, had written to the ministry saying that the MMRDA was ready to accept the land of Kanjurmarg “as is, where is”. But it was when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government unilaterally decided to move the Metro 3 car shed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg that the Center objected.
“The Kanjur plot would always be used for the deposit of 6 Metro lines. It was only when the suggestion to move the deposit from Aarey to Kanjur came up that a specter of litigation was created where there was none, ” said activist Zoru Bhathena.
“The previous state government had started the Metro 6 project in 2016 with the deposit in Kanjurmarg, so all agencies, including the salt department, had agreed. Unfortunately, in 2020, these same departments approached the court to prevent the land from being acquired, ” he added.
The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs put a red flag on the state’s decision to have a common car shed in Kanjurmarg in a letter dated December 1, 2020. The secretary of the ministry, Durga Shanker Mishra, wrote to the Secretary-in-Chief of State, Sanjay Kumar: “… The way in which the integration of Line 3 and Line 6 is being planned may create major operational difficulties for both metro lines within 5-7 years after the start of their operation. This is not desirable for an expensive project like the metro, ” he said.
“Line 3 is in the advanced stage of construction with 90% of the tunnel work and 60% of the station work completed,” Mishra told the general secretary.
The letter said that a 2015 committee set up by the Maharashtra government had considered the possibility of a shed in Kanjurmarg for Line-3. He also recommended extending it by 7.5 kms from Aarey to Kanjurmarg, developing this extended section as a natural part of Line-3.
Mishra recommended that the state government carry out a techno-economic feasibility of the proposed deposit change before requesting a detailed project report, as currently decided by the Government of Mexico.
Last month, in a major setback for the MVA government, the Bombay High Court suspended the Oct. 1 order of the Mumbai suburban collector, transferring the 102-acre parcel in Kanjurmarg to the subway car shed. . The court also stopped all ongoing work on the site.
The Center through its salt department, claiming ownership of the Kanjurmarg land, filed a petition challenging the collector’s order to transfer the land to MMRDA and also a 2018 order from the Maharashtra Finance Minister declaring the state as owner of several saline lands and declaring some private property, in Mumbai.
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