Mumbai: Environmentalists raise concerns over construction of RTO shed inside Aarey Milk Colony

The Maharashtra Public Works Department has invited tenders for the RTO shed. Joining environmentalists, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Monday raised objections to the construction and said the activity is “simply impermissible given the sensitive ecology of the area”.

Aarey Colony is one of the few green patches inside the city limits. It is located next to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, which is the biggest green area in the city.

At present, a 250-metre-long and six-metre-wide road inside Aarey Milk Colony is used as a vehicle testing track. The Bombay High Court had directed the Transport department to conduct vehicle brake tests on a 250-metre track. Due to a space crunch, the Borivali RTO office, which has an area between Goregaon and Dahisar under its jurisdiction, had approached Aarey Dairy Development.

The state Home department had issued a government resolution in 2018 for the testing track. The dairy development has given an old building to the Transport department to house the sub-regional RTO.

In June last year, after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced that a part of the Aarey Colony would be turned into a reserve forest, the Aarey Dairy Development handed over the 812 acre of land adjacent to Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) to the state Forest department.

The hillocks and the area contiguous to the park where leopard movement has been captured has also been included. However, the 812-acre excludes the existing RTO building, testing track, the land on which the controversial car shed for the 33.5-km-long underground Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro Line 1 corridor was to come up.