Navi Mumbai: Environmentalists Protest Plan to Develop Lotus Lake for Real Estate
Navi Mumbai: Environmentalists are voicing significant concern over the City and Industrial Development Corporation's (CIDCO) plan to bury the three-hectare Lotus Lake in Nerul for real estate development. CIDCO claims that Lotus Lake is not a wetland, but this assertion is highly disputed by environmental activists and local residents.
The situation remains unresolved even after State Forest Minister Ganesh Naik's public reprimand to CIDCO officials. Earlier, a CIDCO contractor filled part of the lake with debris and soil from the Navi Mumbai International Airport construction area. Public resistance forced the agency to halt the activity. During a Janata Darbar, Naik ordered CIDCO to remove the truckloads of debris dumped into the lake within a week. The deadline passed, and not a single stone was removed.
NatConnect Foundation director B N Kumar expressed frustration that the minister's directive has been ignored. Activist Sunil Agarwal has been vocal about CIDCO's move and has appealed to both state and central governments to restrain the city planner from reclaiming the lake, a habitat for lotus and thousands of migratory birds. Kumar added that CIDCO seems determined to erase the wetland from the map. CIDCO, which has long denied the existence of wetlands in Navi Mumbai, allegedly engaged an infrastructure firm with political backing to dispose of construction waste from the Navi Mumbai International Airport project at Plot No 2, Sector 27, Nerul—the site known as Lotus Lake.
The Save Navi Mumbai Environment Forum, led by Agarwal, held Sunday marches to the lake for several weeks, demanding that the destruction stop. “If we lose the few remaining wetlands, Navi Mumbai will be doomed,” Agarwal warned. Meanwhile, the State environment department has confirmed that the ground-truthing exercise of Lotus Lake, listed in the National Wetland Inventory and Assessment of the Wetland Atlas, has been completed by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management.
This process is a precursor to officially notifying over 23,000 wetlands across Maharashtra. Activists have repeatedly petitioned the union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, the chief minister, and the state environment department, flagging illegal landfill activities at the site. Following these complaints, the environment department sought status reports from CIDCO. In its response, CIDCO claimed Lotus Lake is a man-made waterbody, and thus does not qualify as a natural wetland. Kumar countered this, citing the Ramsar Convention, which defines wetlands as “areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water—natural or artificial—that support aquatic life.”
