Subhechcha Ganguly 
The National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCLrequest )’s to cut down 21,997 mangrove trees in Mumbai, Palghar, and Thane to clear the path for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project was granted by the Bombay High Court on Friday, subject to a number of conditions.The NHSRCL was given permission by a division bench consisting of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Abhay Ahuja to take down the mangrove trees for the aforementioned public project. According to a high court ruling from 2018, there is a “complete freeze” on the removal of mangroves throughout the state, and authorization must be requested from the high court any time a government entity wants to cut down mangroves for a public project.
According to Live Law, the firm first wanted to cut 53,467 trees, but after the court ordered them to do so, they decreased the number. In addition, the National High Speed Rail Corporation had promised the court that it would plant five times as many mangrove trees as had previously been planned to be cut down and that the number would not be decreased as a result.A non-governmental organisation, Bombay Environment Action Group, opposed the request, claiming that no research had been done on the likelihood that saplings planted as a remedy would survive. This was published by PTI. Additionally, it said that no Environmental Impact Assessment report for tree removal had been submitted. The petitioner NHSRCL had refuted the NGO’s concerns and asserted that it had obtained the necessary approvals for the cutting down of trees for the project of public interest and would make up for any losses resulting from these actions by planting saplings, which the court acknowledged.
It is anticipated that the 508-km high-speed rail route between Mumbai and Ahmedabad will reduce travel time from six and a half hours to two and a half hours. The Eknath Shinde-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government gave the bullet train project a significant boost after taking office in June of this year. This project, the foundation of which was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2017, has received all necessary permits from the current administration.
