Environmentalists urge CM Shinde to save Parsik Hills from further quarrying

Protesting against CIDCO’s attempt to renew Parsik Hill quarrying, environmentalists have appealed to Maharashtra’s new Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to drop these plans and save Navi Mumbai’s biodiversity.

The environmentalists have expressed the fear that the attempts to renew the quarrying would be resumed as Shinde, as Urban Development Minister, had suggested to CIDCO exactly a year ago to look at the possibility of this, subject to clearances.

The Parsik Hill range has already been battered beyond recognition by indiscriminate and limitless quarrying and it is high time that the damaged hills are restored by landfill and replantation, NatConnect Foundation director B N Kumar said in his mail to the Chief Minister.

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The quarry operators have been allotted 138 hectares against which over 264 hectares have been blasted, as per a Forest Department objection, said Nandakumar Pawar, head of Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishtan.

CIDCO, instead of following the rules, has prompted 51 quarry operators to apply for renewals in small clusters. This was apparently to beat the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Control (MOEFCC) stipulation that mining of areas above 100 hectares required prior clearance from the Centre.

The SEIAA at its meeting held on January 25 took up each of the identically-worded applications seeking ‘Environmental Clearance for Extraction Of Minor Minerals (Stone) Favouring CIDCO’. Interestingly, CIDCO joint MD Dr Kailash Shinde and Land Acquisition officer Ajinkya Padwal too attended the meeting.

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The proposals came to the SEIAA after the State Expert Appraisal Committee at its meeting on September 19, 2019, reviewed the applications and opined that the leaseholders should make a common environment management plan for the entire area.

The Parsik Quarries employed over 560 persons, including 300 skilled and 250 unskilled workers, according to a pre-feasibility study submitted by CIDCO to the MOEFCC. They do not employ 40,000 people as claimed by some quarry operators, Pawar pointed out.

Every stakeholder, including the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), opposed quarrying in the interest of the city and the people’s health.

The latest Environment Status Report (ESR) of NMMC shows that the air quality is fairly good now after the halting of quarrying, Kumar said.

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The quarrying has now extended to the Kharghar area where non-stop quarrying has been going on despite the Raigad District administration’s claim that the activity has been stopped. The air quality in the node is bad due to the stone dust in the air, activist Nareshchandra Singh said.

The hills, a natural contiguous extension of Parsik Hills, also home to rich biodiversity is at stake, activist Jyoti Nadkarni said and pointed out that CIDCO has dumped the BNHS plan to develop a nature trail on the hills.

Meanwhile, even the residential side of the Parsik Hills is in danger of landslides as the slopes have been cut indiscriminately in the name of beautification.

Parsik Hill Residents Association president Jayant Thakur said the hill slopes and even the bottom are being scraped and this is dangerous for the hill and the buildings on the top.