“We are literally risking our lives with floods. We are a coastal city. To mess around with mangroves is digging your own grave,” says Pooja Domadia of Save Mumbai Mangroves, a campaign born in the wake of the decision to construct the Versova-Bhayandar Coastal Road in Mumbai. This mega project is going to impact 45,000 mangroves.
The cutting of the mangroves has already begun to make way for the 26.3 km Coastal Road. In March this year, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the Bombay High Court’s go-ahead for the project. But concerned Mumbaikars are not giving up. Save Mumbai Mangroves has been speaking up, creating awareness through various means, and staging protests for the past few months.
“We want to understand a little more about how the afforestation practices are being done,” says Vidushi Kala of the group. The expectations of the group from the BMC are simple: be transparent in your decisions and involve the public in the decision-making process. After all, it is a public project, made with public resources and made for the public.
Check out this video interview, where Pooja and Vidushi tell Citizen Matters about their concerns regarding the coastal road, alternatives to it, their expectations from the BMC, and what keeps them going: