JOIN USGreens move NGT to save Mumbai’s Aksa Beach from killer beautification
Challenging the construction of a seawall at Aksa Beach in Mumbai by the Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB), a group of environmentalists have moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
The petitioners, B N Kumar, Director of NatConnect Foundation and activist Zoru Bathena said they are aggrieved by the indiscriminate, illegal and unnecessary construction being done in the ecologically fragile CRZ 1 lands on Aksa Beach, under - “sea front development and beautification” - commissioned by the MMB”.
The petition, filed last week, said that the MMB violated the directions stipulated by the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) to the project proposals in different shapes from November 2018 to June 2021.
Moreover, the seawall violates the order by a special bench of the NGT imposing a ban on seawalls on all beaches across the country, the petitioners said.
Apart from the MMB, the petition cited the MCZMA, the State Environment and Climate Control department and the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Control (MOEFCC) as respondents.
Aksa Beach in Madh, a popular tourist destination and one of the cleanest beaches, falls within the category of CRZ I area under the CRZ Notification, 2011. The presence of the beach provides a crucial purpose of acting as a natural barrier protecting the region from flooding during monsoon months, the petitioner said.
The activists highlighted the issue when they learnt about MMB deploying JCB machines to excavate the sand, level the beach and concretise a wide span of the Aksa Beach apparently to construct a concrete bund. They complained to the Chief Minister and the MOEFCC alleging violations. Despite the CM as well as the MOEFCC directing the environment department to look into the complaints, no authority intervened and thus allowed the MMB to nearly complete the construction of about 600 metre and four-metre-wide concrete road in the middle of the beach.
“With no options left, we decided to knock on the judiciary’s doors and move the NGT,” Kumar said.
“We were shocked to see such construction work directly on the beach, merely a few feet away from the Arabian sea. It is evident that the sea-wall and adjoining road divides the beach into two, as it is being constructed right in the middle of the beach,” Kumar said.
“The beach will be completely eroded if the wall is permitted to exist as the wall and the road will disallow natural deposition of sediments/sand on the other side of the wall/road,” said Bathena.
The MCZMA had itself pointed out at its 115th meeting that the beach may be eroded due to the solid construction on the beach. Further, solid construction is not permissible as per the CRZ Notification, 2011, the Authority said in its remarks. Even at its subsequent meetings, when MMB approached with different proposals for beautification of the beach, the Authority explicitly opposed any permanent concrete constructions in the intertidal and CRZ1 areas, the petitioners pointed out.
Later, MMB informed the MCZMA it obtained the clearance from the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) for anti-sea erosion measures and submitted a fresh proposal to MCZMA at its meeting in June 2021. The MCZM granted conditional nod to the MMB’s plan but again disallowed any construction on the seaward side.
The petitioners recalled that a special bench of the NGT in April 2022, in a case related to Puducherry beach, directed that hard structures should not be constructed on beaches as anti-erosion measures and, in fact, directed that soft measures be explored for anti-erosion measures. The Tribunal strongly deprecated the building of sea-walls as an erosion prevention technique and pushed for the need for local authorities to consider techniques such as sand nourishment.
Advocate Ronita Bector for the petitioners confirmed the filing with the NGT’s western zonal bench at Pune.