Environmentalist Nandkumar Pawar has written to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, requesting him to instruct officials to look into the encroachment at a salt pan land in Bhandup urgently. Sources told mid-day that the state government has orally asked the concerned department to take action and is in the process of sending written directives.

On January 14, mid-day had reported how, even as the Salt department and the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government are at loggerheads over the ownership of the 102-acre land in Kanjurmarg, set aside for the mass transit project, over 200 makeshift bamboo and tarpaulin structures are coming up on another salt pan land. There are also a few brick-and-mortar units with water connections on the land.