Opposing CIDCO’s attempt to renew Parsik Hill quarries, environmentalists have appealed to new Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to drop the plan and save Navi Mumbai’s biodiversity. They expressed fear that the attempts to renew quarrying would be resumed as Shinde had a year ago, as the then urban development minister, suggested to CIDCO to look at the possibility, subject to clearances.

“The Parsik Hill range has already been battered beyond recognition by indiscriminate and limitless quarrying and it is high time that the damaged hills are restored by landfill and replantation,” NatConnect Foundation Director B N Kumar said in his mail to the CM. Nandakumar Pawar, head of Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishthan, stated, “The quarry operators have been allotted 138 hectares, but over 264 hectares have been blasted, as per a Forest Department objection.”