Uddhav Thackeray led Maharashtra government has appointed another committee to suggest an alternate site for Metro car shed project that was being built at Aarey Colony. A few days ago, the Bombay High Court stayed the Mumbai Suburban District Collector’s decision to transfer 102 acres of land to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). The new nine-member committee appointed by Thackeray would suggest an alternative site for the metro car shed.
As per the report by the Free Press Journal, “The committee has been asked to submit a report within a month. The committee will examine whether the land allocated at Aarey Colony for Metro 3 car shed site as per the project plan was sufficient or will need additional land. Also, whether additional trees will have to be cut to accommodate the construction of the car shed.”
Previously, a four-member expert committee, appointed by Uddhav Thackeray himself in January last year, advised against shifting of the metro car shed.
The committee argued that shifting the car shed for the 33.5 km underground metro route would lead to logistical hurdles, cost escalation and further delay in the completion of the project. In November 2019, the very next day after the Uddhav Thackeray government was sworn in, the construction of the shed was stopped despite the warning delay of the project due to the decision.
The government committee constituted by the Thackeray government argued that shifting of the car shed from the Aarey Milk Colony would lead to a cost escalation of 4,000 crore rupees, but this much amount of taxpayer’s money is too small for Aaditya Thackeray’s ego who is the Environment Minister in his father’s cabinet.
Unfortunate decision to shift Metro CarShed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg and that too just to satisfy ego❗️
This decision will increase the cost of the project by at least ₹4000 crore and this cost escalation is assessed by the committee appointed by this Government. #Aarey— Devendra Fadnavis (Modi Ka Parivar) (@Dev_Fadnavis) October 11, 2020
The Thackeray government does not have the spine to take on the NCP or Congress whose leaders and ministers humiliate the Thackeray government every day, so they are satisfying their ego by wasting the taxpayer’s money. 400 crore rupees of the taxpayers’ money was already spent on the project and staying of the project for almost a year cost the government around 1300 crore rupees and now 4,000 crore rupees of cost escalation is being estimated due to the shifting of the project. So, the total money wasted by the Thackeray government to satisfy its ego is around 5,700 crore rupees and at least one to a two-year delay in the completion of the Bandra-SEEPZ line.
The Maharashtra government was losing 3-4 crore rupees every day due to a halt in construction of the Aarey metro shed and now the shed has been shifted even if it meant the loss of another 4,000 crore rupees of the taxpayer’s money.
The city of Mumbai has one of the worst public infrastructures in the country due to ignorance by the Congress-NCP alliance government which ruled the state from 1999 to 2014. The Fadnavis led government spent billions of dollars to improve the public infrastructure and tried to give a comprehensive metro network to the financial capital.
The people of Mumbai travel 2-3 hours daily in the congested local trains to commute but the Congress-NCP government funnelled all the taxpayer’s money into the Pune-Baramati region- the bastion of the Pawars, and Marathwada region- the stronghold of Congress.
Aaditya Thackeray too is not realising the immense damage he is doing to the future of Mumbaikars by delaying the project. The Mumbaikars might not care for the 6,000 crore rupees costs incurred due to idiosyncrasies of Thackerays but they do care about the one or two-year delay and will teach the party a lesson in the next BMC election which is scheduled in 2022.
The Shiv Sena is already losing ground in Mumbai to BJP as the non-Marathi vote- almost half of Mumbai’s total voter base- has already shifted to BJP and even Marathi people are fed-up with Uddhav Thackeray who operates in the exact opposite direction of his father. The problem is that the non-Marathi voters do not vote in civic elections and if BJP can bring them to the booth in 2022, Shiv Sena is set to lose its two-decades-old monopoly in BMC.