Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
Credit: SGNP Website
Mumbai: The 10 km tunnel under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) is bound to play havoc with the biodiversity and wildlife, official denials notwithstanding, said NatConnect Foundation.
The proposed construction of the twin tube, 3 lanes (each side) highway tunnel of about 10.8 km falls within Sanjay Gandhi National Park and its ECO Sensitive Zone, according to the ecological sensitivity report done by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, which was supposed to execute the project earlier, NatConnect director BN Kumar pointed out.
Now Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has been given the task.
The MSRDC report showed scheduled wildlife such as jungle cats, leopards, rusty spotted cats, small Indian civets, mouse deer and jackals are present in the SGNP.
The national park also has 248 species of birds, 38 varieties of reptiles,43 species of mammals, apart from 345 species of flora. Though officials say the tunnel project or the traffic through it will not disturb the wildlife, the vibrations arising out of the boring and the continuous traffic thereafter are bound to make animals and reptiles run helter-skelter, Kumar said.
“This is bound to intensify the human-wildlife conflict,” he apprehended. Over70,000 cars and buses are expected to zoom through the tunnel, and it is difficult to imagine that these will not cause any vibrations on top, he said.
Experience with the project proponents across MMRDA shows that there is no monitoring of the works in ecologically sensitive zones and there is no guarantee that this project will adhere to all the specifications prescribed, said Nandakumar Pawar of Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishtan. There is also no accountability on part of the environment impact monitoring officials, Pawar said. This kind of development, he said, is bound to play havoc with the city.