MoEF panel wanted Mumbai CRZ-II rules watered down

The Shailesh Nayak committee, that was asked to review Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification - 2011, has recommended a host of dilutions and relaxations in the coastal protection legislation in its report submitted last year. The recommendations, if accepted by the union environment ministry, will unlock a real-estate boom on the city's coast and may have a far-reaching impact on its coastal ecology.

The six-member committee, which was formed in 2014, has prepared a fresh draft CRZ notification and recommended that the 2011 version be scrapped. It has recommended that in Mumbai, real estate development should be allowed in CRZ-II areas as per the city’s Development Control Rules and the restrictions on Floor Space Index (FSI), imposed as per the 2011 notification, should be done away with.

It also says that for slum rehabilitation and redevelopment of cessed and dilapidated buildings, the state government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) can follow the Town and Country Planning Regulations and the FSI and Floor Space Ratio, that was frozen as on January 2011, can be relaxed.

The committee’s recommendations will be in line with the demands of the real-estate sector in Mumbai that has been seeking relaxations in CRZ notification for several years now. The recommendations are also in tune with the requests BMC made to the committee and similar proposals have been included in the city’s new Development Plan 2034. The move to relax CRZ norms for development has been severely opposed by city environmentalists over the years, fearing the loss of more open spaces and ecology.

According to the committee's report, the BMC has requested for insertion of a clause in the draft notification which allowed to apply uniform Development Control Rules for entire Mumbai. “With regard to CRZ-II areas, the zone defined as already developed and with infrastructure should become integral part of development/redevelopment as envisaged in the Town and Country Planning Regulations as brought out from time to time. In this regard, the land use zoning and the FSI should be decided as per the current needs and not tied down to 1967 Rules,” the report said.

The union environment ministry, which has not accepted the report yet, released it last week only after Kanchi Kohli of Centre for Policy Research – Namati moved the Central Information Commission with a second appeal after her Right to Information request was denied by the ministry. The CIC, in April, had ordered the ministry to release the report within three weeks. “When the government is thinking of taking big decisions to allow real-estate development near the sea, it is important that the citizens of the city get an opportunity to discuss these issues,” Kohli had said.

During the review of the notification, the committee met with government representatives from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Goa and Kerala to discuss their reservations against implementation of CRZ notification. One of the other major recommendations of the committee is for allowing state governments to clear projects that do not require environment clearance.

If revamped, the new CRZ notification will supersede the 2011 notification prepared under the United Progressive Alliance when Jairam Ramesh was the environment minister. The 2011 notification was prepared after a committee headed by scientist MS Swaminathan submitted its report in July 2010.