In a meeting held at Mantralaya on Wednesday, the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis instructed civic officials to expedite the process of obtaining environmental clearances from the central government for the Gargai Dam project. The project is expected to significantly boost the city's daily water supply by 440 million litres (ML).
The Gargai dam in Palghar district, 110 km away from Mumbai, is awaiting environmental approvals. "The chief minister has instructed the BMC and the Forest Department to coordinate and submit an immediate proposal for the rehabilitation of villages affected by the dam project," said a civic official. According to the sources, the preliminary engineering works for the Gargai dam project are nearly completed, with most requisite technical clearances obtained. Permissions from the forest department and wildlife board are awaited.
The project is being constructed near a village close to Wada, and will require the rehabilitation of six villages in the surrounding area. In the meeting, discussions were also held on various key topics, including the dam project, the villages that would be displaced due to the project, their rehabilitation, and the overall budget of Rs. 3,000 crores allocated for the dam project. The meeting was attended by Milind Mhaiskar, Additional Chief Secretary of the Forest Department, Vinita Singhal, Principal Secretary of the Environment Department, Pravin Pardeshi, CEO of the Mitra Foundation, Bhushan Gagarani, municipal Commissioner.
In the 1990s, the BMC appointed the Dr. Madhavrao Chitale committee to evaluate Mumbai's water supply system and develop a comprehensive action plan. This committee proposed the construction of three dams: Gargai, Pinjal, and Middle Vaitarna. While the BMC successfully completed the Middle Vaitarna project in 2014, it has not initiated a single new dam project since then. The BMC has recently revived the Gargai dam project with an allotment of Rs 37 crore. The project was earlier scrapped by then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) govt, citing the destruction of 4.5 lakh trees among other reasons.
