India – After months of delay, the work on creating a comprehensive inventory of the city’s ecological assets has finally kicked off, and an inception report is scheduled to be completed by October.
According to sources in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region-Environment Improvement Society (MMR-EIS), the independent body which undertook the project in March 2007, the satellite images for Mumbai had finally been acquired after nine months of delay, and work has formally begun.
EIS is supported by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).
Prasad Shetty, an environmental planner and a member of the EIS, said, “For nine months we were struggling to get the satellite images. It was a difficult task as some of the pictures and maps were of defence sensitive areas and very difficult to acquire.”
The eco-assets documentation will be divided into three stages. In the first stage, an inception report will be prepared putting together the base map. The second stage will involve a condition assessment of all the regions identified, while the third and the most tedious stage would involve the listing of all critical features that require attention and the formulation of an action plan to conserve them. “Now, our consultants have the colossal task of putting together all the images for the base map and creating the inception report. This, we aim to complete by October,” Shetty said.
Initially, the entire project was scheduled to be ready by May 2009, but it may now take a few months longer, he added.
The mapping is being undertaken by two consultants: EPC-DPM, an environmental-planning collaboration from Ahmedabad and Adarkar Associates, a Mumbai-based architecture and planning company. While the MMRDA is said to have made an allotment of Rs 5 crore for the project, an additional Rs 60 lakh, which EIS earns annually, is also being channeled into the mapping.
Uma Adusumalli, chief town planner of the MMRDA and a committee member of the EIS said: “Since it took us so long to start work on the mapping, there may be a slight delay in its completion. We will initially focus only on listing Mumbai’s assets. Later, we will consider creating a similar database for the entire metropolitan region (MMR).” The MMR includes the entire stretch from Mumbai to Virar, Alibaug, Khopoli, Kalyan and Bhiwandi.
According to EIS sources, the inventory will list open spaces (recreational grounds, playgrounds and parks); water bodies (lakes and ponds); water courses (rivers and natural nullahs); coastline features (like mudflats, rocky beaches, sandy beaches, etc) and large urban green areas (national parks, IIT campus, Byculla zoo, Aarey Milk Colony, etc.) as included in the 1991-2011 Development Plan.
