Residents of Powai’s Hiranandani township are up in arms against a proposed 13.4-metre Development Plan (DP) road that they fear will cut through the Pramod Mahajan Garden, an urban forest, resulting in the loss of trees and green cover. The road has been part of the DP since 2018 but residents said they became aware of the alignment only weeks ago, after BMC garden department officials visited the site to assess the trees that could be affected.
More than 500 residents submitted representations to the BMC on Friday, and more than 4,000 have signed letters that will be submitted in the coming days, urging it to reconsider the alignment. Around 35 building societies in the township have also written to BMC. Roughly eight metres of the proposed road will pass through the six-acre Pramod Mahajan Garden while the remaining stretch will pass through an adjoining plot owned by Supreme Infrastructure India Ltd, which is developing a commercial Global Capability Centre (GCC) . They have sought alternative alignments that avoid the garden, its trees and vegetation.
“It is particularly troubling that the proposed alignment appears primarily to facilitate and benefit the adjoining commercial development,” residents said in their representation. Residents said the forest was not merely recreational space but also played an important role in absorbing rainwater. Shobha Philip, secretary of Lake Castle which abuts the forest, said the area’s natural gradient and surrounding hills allowed rainwater to percolate into the soil and contribute to groundwater recharge. “If a significant portion of this green area is lost to construction, water discharge will face an issue, particularly during heavy rain,” she said, adding that increased concretisation could worsen flooding.
Following the representations, BMC initiated an exercise to assess the potential impact of the proposed road, including the number of trees that could be affected. Garden department officials subsequently conducted an inventory of the trees at the site.
A civic source said that BMC had earlier received representations from two residents objecting to the proposed road’s alignment on the grounds that it could affect the garden.
