Pune: A member of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), constituted by the Supreme Court, Anjan Kumar Mohanty on Saturday visited several locations that come under the riverfront development project (RFD) after citizen groups submitted ecological concerns associated with the project.“On 4 March 2025, the Supreme Court had directed all states and Union Territories to provide consolidated records of their forest lands, including deemed forests, within six months. This has not been done in Pune. In this context, NGO Jeevitnadi communicated with the CEC, highlighting the ecological richness of the riparian forests not only along the Mula, Mutha, and Mula-Mutha rivers but also along the Pavana and Indrayani rivers in Aug 2025,” said Prajakta Mahajan, core member of the Pune River Revival (PRR) and Jeevitnadi groups.A statement from the PRR group stated that the official visit covered the Ramnadi-Mula confluence, Balewadi, Dada Ghat, and Sangvi river stretches during which the citizens and environmental groups highlighted concerns regarding the loss of riparian forests, disturbance to wetlands and springs, disruption of faunal corridors, debris dumping, and the proposed tree felling in ecologically sensitive riverbank areas.Dinkar Gojare, chief engineer (project department) at the Pune Municipal Corporation, said, “The PMC already has the data of plantations. As for calling all the area near the rivers deemed forest, it has not been possible because some of the land remains private, which could not be declared deemed forest.”“If we start calling private land where plantation has been done as forests, it would deter people from planting trees. We were already protecting the area near the Ramnadi-Mula river confluence from any construction. We have been following all legal procedures when it comes to RFD. We have also received environment clearance for the project, but because of different court cases, the work remains pending,” said Gojare, adding that the CEC member was also shown all the work related to replantation and plantation done by the PMC.“As concerned citizens, we believe that conserving these ecologically rich riparian areas is vital for creating livable cities and restoring to the river the space and ecological functions that have been inherently theirs. We were hopeful that the respected member of the CEC would take due cognisance of these concerns and recommend to the Supreme Court the protection of Pune’s riparian forests under the ‘Deemed Forest’ category,” said a statement from Shailaja Deshpande, Jeevitnadi.“We need criteria for the identification of riparian forests (riparian buffer zones) to help these are declared as deemed forests. We have submitted a draft document to that effect to Anjan Kumar Mohanty for review after necessary discussions. We hope that such notification would help make such conservations systemic across rivers in India,” said Ajay Phatak, trustee of ecological society.
