‘Nayak’ and ‘Arjun’ have been hard at work in the bowels of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). They are not forest officials safeguarding the ecologically sensitive green area spread over 103 square kilometres — among the world’s most unique national parks in a megacity. These are the names of the tunnel boring machines deployed to dig and bore several metres below the park’s surface for two east-west road connectors, the Thane-Borivali Twin Tunnel and the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road.

If the Maharashtra government’s revenue department had its way, then there might have been several Nayaks and Arjuns, besides others, romping around in the remnants of the forest. It received and blindly forwarded a proposal from a BJP worker, RD Jha, who claims to be a former professor of physics and runs an NGO in Mira Road and Darbhanga, Bihar, to set up a university and an integrated township inside the SGNP.

Concerns over protected forest land

The government’s forest department denied permission to the hare-brained idea, citing the Forest (Protection and Conservation) Act, 1980, and the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Unless Jha lived under a rock all this while, he would have known that Indian laws do not allow construction inside a national park or sanctuary. This is taught in schools these days.

The question begs itself: why did an average BJP worker, out of the blue, propose a project like this in the national park? An equally serious question: why did the government’s revenue department consider it........

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