The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is likely to approve the State government’s proposed amendments to Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms for Navi Mumbai, Panvel and other coastal satellite townships on Monday.

The draft rules concerning the coastal ecosystem of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), excluding Mumbai, were cleared in a meeting of ministry officials in Chennai earlier this week. “We have ironed out all glitches and hope to get the final clearances on Monday. The rules are crucial for smooth development of the coastline extending outside of Mumbai,” State Principal Secretary, Environment, Anil Diggikar, said.

Senior officials said the rules are vital to the development activity in the MMR and to provide a buffer to the coastal ecosystem. Like in Mumbai, the high tide line (HTL) for the townships has been brought down to 50 metres from the previous 100 metres, allowing for ecotourism activities such as nature trails and mangrove walks to flourish, Mr. Diggikar said. “We will ensure active preparation of the coastal zone management plans to promote all of these activities,” he told The Hindu.

Activists and experts have contested the reduction in the coastal buffer, since the previous distance between the HTL and land area was 500 metres before the introduction of the CRZ 2011. Recently, during a visit to Mumbai, the 15-member Rajya Sabha Committee on Subordinate Legislation had taken a special note of the changes suggested by the State under the Draft Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 2018. The changes include, as a “special consideration”, a 50-metre buffer instead of the existing 500-metre belt.

The committee, under the chairmanship of Dr. T. Subbarami Reddy, took stock of 10 clauses put up for change under the draft CRZ notification by the State government earlier this year. “We have explained our views on why it is necessary to reduce the buffer to 50 metres; the reasons mainly being shortage of land and high-density development along the sea front in Mumbai,” a senior bureaucrat who attended the committee meeting had said.