Tribal community in Mumbai protests against GMLR survey

Adivasi residents of Habalepada and Nagarmudi Pada obstructed the survey task for the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) and sat on a protest against the construction of twin tunnels that will run under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) hills and exit at Khindipada in Mulund.

Adivasi residents of Habalepada and Nagarmudi Pada obstructed the survey task for the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) and sat on a protest against the construction of twin tunnels that will run under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) hills and exit at Khindipada in Mulund.

Today when the BMC survey team arrived with police protection at the spot, adivasis agitated their presence with a protest. “In 2019 we filed claims under Forest Rights Act 2006 (FRA 2006). Through an RTI response we learnt that they are going to use cut and cover method of tunnelling that will destroy our homes and farm land. We were not consulted about any of these project. In 2017 Habalepada residents were served notices by Slum Rehabilitation Authority, Mumbai, to survey our houses whereas, Habalepada has been documented in the report prepared by the Tribal Research and Training Institute as one of the adivasi pada in Mumbai. This is BMC’s tactic to declare adivasis as slum dwellers to encroach their land for their destructive projects,” said Dinesh Shanakar Habale, resident and member of Adivasi Hakk Sanvardhan Samiti, an organisation run by the tribal community.

The GMLR project aims to connect western and eastern suburbs and cut the travel time by 1 hour. It was one of the proposed roads under the 1991-1992 Development Plan. “Government has allotted this land many years ago under the road development planning; it is one of the DP roads,” said an officer on anonymity.

Amrita Bhattacharjee from Aarey Movement said, “Adivasis have the rights given under the Forest Right Act 2006 to file claims on individual farm land and community rights on the forest land that they use for collecting woods, vegetables, herbs etc. 12 women and 6 men were taken in police custody and were also physically hurt by the police. When the process to evaluate the FRA claims are carried out by BMC , it is illegal to conduct any surveys for any projects without the consent of the gram sabha formed by the Adivasi Pada. BMC didn’t run any social impact assessment study before declaring the GMLR project.”