In its first response to a five-year-old complaint, the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) has asked the Konkan divisional commissioner and state mangrove committee to investigate destruction of mangroves in the Thane creek along the Sion-Panvel highway by the debris mafia. The complaint was filed on August 1, 2018, by B N Kumar director of NatConnect Foundation, an NGO, which alleged the destruction of mangroves at Vashi and Mankhurd by the dumping of construction debris. Kumar had also submitted the same complaint to the environment department three months later. Nanda Kumar Pawar, who heads the organisation Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishthan, also lodged a similar complaint with the mangrove committee in December 2018 against the destruction.

 All these years, the High Court-appointed mangrove committee headed by the Konkan divisional commissioner was dealing with the complaint with no conclusive outcome. “The net result is that mangroves continue to perish and no official is taking responsibility in accordance with the High Court order to protect the tidal plants as our fundamental right,” Pawar said. Kumar regretted that many officials and ministers travel on the highway yet no one cares for the mangroves. “We are shocked and appalled with the pace of functioning of the all important MCZMA,” said Kumar.