Fadnavis in Delhi for nod to coastal road in city.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is scheduled to meet Union Environment Minister Prakash Javdekar soon for green clearance to the multi-crore coastal road project, which has been stuck for over three years now.

Planned to decongest traffic levels in Mumbai, the ambitious project envisages construction of a 34-km new road from Nariman Point to Kandivali in the Western suburbs along the western coastline.

The project's bottleneck is that it involves reclamation of sea for about 110 hectare. Existing coastal regulation norms prohibit reclaiming land from the sea for road projects.

Recently, team Fadnavis, which would include Additional Chief Secretary (Environment) Ajoy Mehta and Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte among other senior state bureaucrats, will make a case for a special dispensation being made for the coastal road project.

While former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan is credited for pushing the ambitious project, his government had failed to secure the green nod for the reclamation work from the Centre.

Batting for the project, the CM had declared, during the recently-completed winter session of the state legislature, that Javdekar had given an in-principle nod to the project. Saturday is the first meeting lined up on the issue following this announcement. With CM himself heading the delegation, senior state functionaries said that they were hoping for some positive news following the meeting. In Delhi, Fadnavis is also expected to root for other vital infrastructure projects. The CM is also scheduled to meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh during the day.


THE INDIAN EXPRESS