This is a presentation I made at the International Workshop Coastal, River Zone Management, Regulations and Development organised by NEERI, IITB and ICC.

1. International Workshop on Coastal and River
Zone Management:
Regulations and Development
Perspectives from Mumbai
Rishi Aggarwal
January 10-11th, 2013
IIT-Bombay
Organised by NEERI and IITB

2. How would things happen if the 74th amendment
was being implemented in spirit?
• Center would give guidelines
• State would incorporate specific points of interest from State context
• City or town Mayor final level of development of coastal, estuary or river
zone development rules, balancing local interests, requirements and
concerns, while incorporating the concerns in the Center and State
guidelines.
• All stakeholders would have been working together in some measure in
spite of differences.

3. How it happens in Mumbai
• Most people have no idea of who is finally taking a call and
influencing the decision.
• Economic interests, think (or are mislead) that environmentalists are
all powerful and stalling development.
• Environmentalists rue not having a seat on the table, gross neglect of
environmental interests from government and colluding with
economic interests.

4. Aspects of coastal ecology needing appreciation
• Role in providing a livable habitat, with moderation in temperature
being a key aspect. Hence preferred urban destinations.
• Comparable to fertile agricultural lands in terms of food output.
• Ports and trade. Provides employment opportunities.
• Disaster management role

5. Compare this
We pay avg. 4-5 lacs We pay nothing to get
to get CO2, SO2, fresh oxygen and air

6. CRZ II – The bane and bone of contention in
Mumbai
• CRZ II and the arbitrariness in its use has created enormous heartburn
in Mumbai.
• Dominant view that rich and influential will get away while the poor
and those who cannot ‘pay up’ will suffer.

8. Site indicated in red
shade triangle
‘apparently’ stuck due
to lack of CRZ clearance,
while slums and a slum
redevelopment takes
place right next to
creek.
Andheri(W), Juhu
Versova Road

11. Building at site indicated
by shorter red line in
previous slide

12. Wards

13. SK
PAT
I L JSS
RO A
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MA MA GRA
RIN ID AN
VE
YA
E D RI S
RD
VE
RA
ILW m
A 0
YL
INE 50
S

14. Are environmentalists stalling development?
• Or are they taking a long term view over a short term view?
• Or are they bringing out aspects which will damage the economy, being
suppressed by those ‘pro-development’?
• Opposing activities, which will yield short term high profits and possible
losses in long term loss.
• Opposing activities which cause economic gain for very few but loss
through negative externalities, which have to be borne by large number of
public.

15. Most important…
• CRZ cannot be looked at in isolation of policies in other sectors like
housing, transport and solid waste management.
• It is a web and only a holistic sense of planning with a lot of integrity
and commitment to the city and citizens can help avoid the conflicts
and deadlock we face.
• Some case studies follow on SWM, Housing and Transport

16. Solid Waste –Biggest threat to coast ecology in
Mumbai
• End of the pipe solution preferred going against all established wisdom
AND policy.
• MSW 2000 Rules and subsequent legislations clearly mandate support to
segregation at source and reduced transport to garbage dumps.
• Yet the sole focus of MCGM in past decade has been on pick and dump.
• Almost zero encouragement to entrepreneurs interested in decentralized
waste management.

17. Kanjur dumping ground case study
• MCGM submitted affidavit in Bombay HC 2005/06, informing that the
site is free of CRZ(tidal) influence and free of habitation in the vicinity.
This is a lie.
• Even today in 2013 the site sees heavy influx of tidal waters during
high tide.
• Supposed to be a sanitary landfill. Past six months leachate being
released outside boundary wall into the estuary.

19. 2012

20. 2005

21. Pick and dump
BMC and MPCB
have a lot to
answer for this
2012-13 budget
allocation for SWM
is ~2000 crores

22. Kanjur salt
pans converted
to dumping
ground
June 2012
Photo: Stalin/Vanashakti

23. Photo: Stalin/Vanashakti

24. Photo: Stalin/Vanashakti

25. What happened to
segregation?
Should batteries also
come to the dumping
ground?

26. Dry waste being collected
and disposed separately
Makarand Society, Mahim

27. Rag pickers do more for coastal ecology
than even activists and certainly more
than officials. Do we involve them in
discussions?

28. These sights don’t move the
administration

29. Transport
• Coast Road has been the latest coastal concern for Mumbai
• Being proposed by CM as the solution to our traffic congestion
problems.
• Transport analysts and activists continuously protesting that the city
has to improve public transport and retrain private cars. Still
investment only in car centric infrastructure like coast road.

31. So we propose a coast road…

32. …or a sea link

33. And then this happens…

34. Housing issues

40. 500 acres of mangroves destroyed for a golf course
and a villa scheme 40

41. Poor interest in water quality and edge
management

45. Mumbai context
• No instance in last decade of ALL stakeholders spending time
together to understand each others viewpoints and evolving a well
thought out local plan
• Ready availability of resources for activities like mapping and planting
mangroves (almost useless activity), but no resources for protection
and prosecution units for protecting existing mangroves.
• First responders to threats to coastal ecology invariably activists.
What can be called Rooftop Network.

46. Mumbai context
• Elected representatives, the mainstay of a democracy looked upon
with great suspicion by civil society. Substantial interaction only with
officials.
• No clear demarcation of HTL
• CRZ more a tool of extortion than conservation?
• Very important to have detailed interaction about CRZ, 2011 and its
significance for Mumbai.

47. Thank you