Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray addressed the people of the state on Sunday (archive)
Highlight
- If wanting the best for Mumbai is “arrogance”, I admit it: Uddhav Thackeray
- The opposition asked the state to “renounce the ego” in the subway project
- Thackeray stopped work on the car shed in Aarey and switched it to Kanjurmarg
Bombay:
Infrastructure works undertaken hastily may lead to waste rather than true development, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said on Sunday, days after BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis demanded that Thackeray and the Shiv Sena-led state government resign. to their “ego” and resume construction of the controversial subway car shed project in Mumbai Aarey neighborhood.
Thackery, whose administration halted construction work in Aarey and relocated it to Kanjurmarg in October after fierce protest from civil society and environmental activists, responded to Fadnavis, saying that if wanting the best for Mumbai was “arrogance,” then he admitted. that blame.
“They call me ‘arrogant’ because of the Metro car shed. Yes, I am arrogant about Mumbai. We sent the car shed to Kanjurmarg because building it in Aarey was destroying the forest there. First, trees would have been cut down for a car shed … then for something else … and slowly the whole forest would have disappeared, “Thackeray said.
“It is not true that for development to occur, things only have to be done quickly. Working in a hurry can generate losses and waste. We want development … but for present and future generations,” continued the Chief Minister, noting that it happening despite reduced cash flow.
“We decided to build the car shed in Kanjurmarg because in Aarey only the Metro 3 shed would have been possible. In Kanjurmarg, the sheds for Metro 3, 4 and 6 are possible. There is also room here for further expansion of the project. Yes We built in Aarey, it would have been useful for five years. In Kanjurmarg it will be useful for 50 years, “he added.
“You (people of Maharashtra) please tell me … what is the arrogance in this?” Mr Thackeray asked.
Fierce protests to save the Aarey forest erupted against the plan to build a Metro car shed (Archive)
Last week, the Bombay High Court temporarily suspended construction in Kanjurmarg, and the center challenged ownership of the land, about 102 acres, saying it belonged to its salt department.
A day later, Devendra Fadnavis (who was the prime minister before Thackeray, and whose government pushed the siege of Aarey) claimed that the state had changed the construction “just to satisfy his ego.”
Thackeray responded: “Politics should not hinder development … more than property, what matters is how the project will benefit people.”
The proposed construction of a car shed in Aarey sparked a bitter dispute last year between environmental activists and the then BJP-ruled government, which wanted to cut down 2,700 trees to build the shed. The Sena, then an ally of the BJP, strongly opposed the plan.
Aarey Forest, a vast green belt with around five lakh of trees and home to a wide variety of animals and birds, is widely seen as the “green lung of Mumbai”.
In October last year, the Bombay High Court refused to declare Aarey a forest. The activists wrote to the then Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, asking the Supreme Court to intervene. The court ordered a temporary suspension, but the then Maharashtra government said it had cut down the required trees.
Construction came to a halt in November after the results of the Assembly elections, in which the BJP was overthrown and the Seine came to power, with Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister.
Thackeray ordered a suspension of construction (on cleared land) in one of his first decisions.
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