From: bcsabha.kal...@gmail.com
To:
From: G R Vora <grvo...@gmail.com>
28.8.2015
Dear friends,
In order to protest against the proposed destruction of Juhu - Versova Beach
due to construction of Coastal Road, a massive human chain with placards
will be held along the length of the Juhu beach. Please inform all your friends
and relatives and come in large numbers to express our views against the
coastal road.
Kindly assemble at Central Chowpatty at Juhu Beach, near Gandhi jis
statue.
8am, Sunday 30th August, 2015.
Read about the harm to our environment and the landscape, due to this project
below.
G R VoraCell: 09869195785=============
Friends,
Juhu & Versova Beaches are our
precious gem, iconic beaches and a unique open space in our open spaces starved
city of Mumbai. Millions flock these beaches from all over the city and
elsewhere in the country, for breath of fresh air, enjoy the sea breeze, bask in
the sun-set and experience the open vista. Above all, they are a great social
equaliser and an ecological asset.
Tragically, there is continuing
attack on these beaches. Projects are being pushed that would take away the
beach for construction works and or cause conditions under which the beach will
be eroded within a very short time, as we have mutely witnessed in the case of
large parts of Versova and Dadar-Prabhadevi beaches.
Firstly, the central government is pushing for
the expansion of the Juhu airport by building a runway across the beach into
the sea, splitting the Juhu beach into two parts. Close to a kilometre of the
central beach will turn into a mega construction site and barricaded for
airport and the runway security. They also say that buildings on either side of
the runway will have to be demolished to enable this "development"
idea, at a time when cities world over are taking airports to places far out of
their cities.
More recently, the Detailed Project Report
(DPR) of the coastal road has proposed a under sea tunnel not far from the
coastal edge of Juhu and Versova beaches. This will entail massive construction
on the beach at both ends of the tunnel of kilometre long ramps along with high
sea walls to prevent flooding of the tunnel. As a result, not only our
relationship with the sea will be severed at both these ends but turn the
central areas of the beach into a confined bay. The adverse impact of sea
current and tidal patterns due to such forced changes in the coastal character
will arrest the natural sand deposition process, thus leading to erosion of the
beach within a very short period of time. Then the government would have start
dumping concrete tetra-pods and boulders to protect our properties along these
naked coastal edges. Alternately, such a tunnel could be in-land under the Juhu
airport as has been suggested by the Joint Coastal Road Committee. Strangely
this has been ignored by the mindless DPR consultants appointed by the
Corporation with hefty fees of eight crores.
Imagine
our plight and the condition of the beaches then. The runway will take away a
kilometre of the central Juhu beach, while the two ramps of the coastal road
tunnel
will further take away two kilometres, leaving little fragments of just about a
kilometre out of the four kilometre long iconic Juhu-Versova beach for public
access. Aren't we being bluffed and coined into an alarming
social-environmental disaster?
The coastal situation is not going to be any
different in other areas of the city due to the DPR plans for a eight lane
forty meter wide highway trap, turning Mumbai into a highway-front city. Malad
creek is proposed to be land-filled in large parts, mangroves in Malad,
Versova, Juhu and Bandra areas will be
destroyed. Haji Ali bay will see a sea of highways and inter-changes. Worli sea
face will be further land-filled. The popular people's built promenades in
Carter road and Band-stand will go. Access and relationship of Kohlis in Khar,
Bandra and Juhu areas with the sea will be severed.
Let's fight to save our dear Juhu & Versova
beaches.
==============
