Dinesh Kamath's news item 'Wildlife board gives green signal in the matter of NMIA project' that was published in Newsband

Wildlife board gives green signal in the matter of NMIA project

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: The National Board of Wildlife has cleared the Navi Mumbai international airport (NMIA) project which is close to the Karnala bird sanctuary. But the Board has laid two conditions.

Now only the land acquisition form the project affected persons (PAPs) remains to be done. City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) has already acquired 74 per cent of the 2,000-hectare land needed for the Rs 14,500-crore project.

The clearance had become necessary after many environmentalists had expressed fears that the new airport would adversely affect the birds and animals in and around the Karnala sanctuary.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had received the complaint that the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report for the proposed airport claimed that the project site was 12.5 km from the sanctuary when actually the exact distance between the two points calculated was only 9 km. CIDCO and state forest department were accused of deliberately concealing the fact that Karnala was less than 10 km from the airport site. It was also alleged that the project would damage additional forest area other than mangroves around it.

The MoEF then appointed environmentalist Kishor Rithe and a senior forest department official to study whether aircraft operation would affect the wildlife in Karnala. The National Board of Wildlife discussed the issue in detail on Thursday and gave the green signal.

However, the NBWL has asked the state to protect the wildlife in the park and set up a mangroves sanctuary around the project site while implementing the project.

The two-member committee set up by the board for a site-specific study submitted its report to the standing committee of the board, which was headed by environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan. The board members accepted the report on the conditions that the clearance should include setting up a mangrove sanctuary in the area and paying the widlife department for conservation efforts in the area.

Another proposal to widen the Mumbai-Goa highway, which cuts through Karnala sanctuary, was kept on hold as the NBWL wanted to study in detail a report by environmentalist Anish Andheria.