Bombay HC raps Maharashtra government on Uran Koliwada bypass road project – India Today

Exasperated with the way government departments plan and execute infrastructure projects, a bench of the Bombay High Court came down heavily on the Maharashtra government, saying, “This entire approach of the State Government towards planning prima facie appears to us to be faulty.”

The bench of justices GS Patel and Gauri Godse was hearing a petition filed by 134 traditional fishermen (Kolis) from the fishing village of Uran Koliwada in Uran Taluka of Raigad District. The principal concern in the petition was that the proposed 11-metre wide Uran Bypass Road at Uran Koliwada would materially affect the petitioners’ traditional fishing rights.

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During earlier hearings, every time the court sought a response from the Maharashtra government, it only got a request for an adjournment. The government also claimed the fishermen would not be impacted. City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) said that it is only executing or implementing the bypass project required by the state government.

However, now the state government through its pleader told the bench that the “Fisheries Department will make a survey. Then there will be a report. Then there will be an assessment of compensation.”

This is what shocked the bench. “This is not what we expect to be told. We do not see how the project alignment could have been decided before doing a survey and before assessing the possible impact on persons such as the Petitioners. It surely stands to reason that any such survey would have had to be done first, whether by the Fisheries Department or some other department. Further, if the statement is that the Petitioners will be given ‘compensation’, then that necessarily implies that there is in fact an adverse impact on the Petitioners as a result of the project. The State Government cannot simultaneously say in one breath that there is no impact and also say that compensation will be given,” the bench observed.

The bench further said, “We find it astonishing that no thought has been given to the plight of persons directly affected by this project, even though the livelihoods of the Petitioners are said to be adversely affected, and that too permanently. Simply throwing money at people is not an answer to what is evidently a displacement problem, a question involving the livelihood of the poor and the marginalised, and essentially a question about the human condition of persons who depend on fishing for their daily earnings.”

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The court temporarily stayed the project till Aug 5 and said, “The implicit suggestion that the alignment of this bypass is somehow written in stone and no other alignment is possible is also questionable. We do not understand either why there is no mention of alternative sites for either the bypass or for the petitioners’ traditional fishing landing locations. These are surely matters that should have been considered, and that should have been done before a project was simply put into execution. More importantly, in any such project, some process of public awareness, information dissemination and perhaps even public consultation was, we prima facie believe, desirable and possibly even necessary.”

The court has asked an officer of the State Government from the department responsible for the project and from the Fisheries Department to be present in court on the next date of hearing.