The season of good news has begun for our petition. On 3rd September, 2020, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced that a 600-acre land in Aarey colony would be declared as reserve forest.

Next good news came swiftly when Rail Corporation (MMRC) project director S K Gupta declared that the Metro 3 car shed site is being closed and secured. Mumbaikars & Environmentalists who have been opposing the construction of Metro car shed inside Aarey Forest since 2014 saw a ray of light for World's 4th most polluted city.

The latest in the fleet of good news include a proposal for the allocation of 328.9 hectare (ha) within Aarey as a reserved forest under the Indian Forest Act.

The Centre in December 2016 excluded 165 ha of 1,287 ha of Aarey from SGNP’s eco-sensitive zone to allow construction, including a Metro car shed following a state government proposal. Now, an area twice the size of what was excluded (165 hectare) from Aarey forest within the protected buffer zone of Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in December 2016 will soon be part of the park. The 165 ha which shall now come under reserved area had earlier various infrastructure projects planned like Metro Bhawan, a zoological park, an encroachment rehabilitation project, a regional transport office among others. Now a total of 800 acres of land.

“A zoo is already in Byculla and cannot be established inside a reserved forest. Secondly, we found that the 90-ha area allotted for an encroachment rehabilitation project had rich biodiversity and it was not feasible to shift people there. Thus, almost 200 acres were freed up.” said Milind Mhaiskar, principal secretary (forests).

Environment Minister Aditya Thackeray says this decision is based on the public hearing, local residents rights protection & eco- sensitivity of the land.

This highlights the importance of people's participation in governance and upholds the democratic process in decision making. The credit for the series of good news at Aarey Forest goes to the proactive approach of Maharashtra's Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray, thousands of Mumbaikars, environmentalists, activists, students, senior citizens, tribal communities who battled rains & pains to protest against the autocratic regime that opened upon precious Aarey forest for construction against the citizens' demands.

We soon hope for complete 3000 acres of Aarey Forest to be declared as a reserve forest.