On December 16, the Bombay High Court stayed an order passed by the Mumbai Suburban District Collector to allot a 102 sq km plot of salt pan land in Kanjurmarg for construction of the integrated metro car shed. The court also ordered that no construction work take place on the land.
It is noteworthy, that the car shed for Metro line 3 was previously planned inside the Aarey forest, but authorities were forced to reconsider their decision in wake of large-scale public protests that followed the surreptitious cutting of trees at mid-night. The car shed was then shifted to the plot in Kanjurmarg as per an order passed by the Collector on October 1, 2020. In fact, the Maharashtra government decided to construct an integrated car shed for Metro lines 3, 4, 4A and 6 at the site.
However, there is now a dispute over ownership of the new plot in Kanjurmarg between the Central and State government. This dispute is compounded by the tussle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its former ally, the Shiv Sena, that is now part of a coalition government with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra.
The central government moved court against the transfer of the Kanjurmarg plot to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for construction of the metro car shed.
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