Paradise Lost

Nestled in the midst of a bustling city, Powai was always known as a green dot on the map. Around twenty years ago, it was a popular tourist spot because of the placid and serene Powai Lake and the illustrious Indian Institute of Technology with its rich forest cover. The lake, though man made, was an attractive picnic spot for many people, and families were often seen relaxing at the edge of it and taking in its beauty. While IIT and the lake still remain, gone are the dense woods with their rich and varied flora and fauna.The dense foliage and the lush hills of the area were a common sight, but have now given way to mass over construction and the once tranquil lake has now become a dump for human and chemical effluents.

Rampant and unbridled construction has been one of the major problems affecting the area. Powai was initially given to Hiranandani constructions by the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) to build low cost housing for the poor, but the land was instead used to construct high end apartments for the rich and elite. CitiSpace and Action for Good Governance and Networking in India (AGNI) were some of the prominent NGO’s to discover these kinds of violations, and are actively in the process of opposing this kind of unbridled construction.

Nutan Bhalla, an AGNI activist says, “The Hiranandani Group has flouted every rule of urban development possible. Unchecked quarrying of the hills in Powai has been carried out for years right under the eyes of the authorities and nothing has been done about it. The lake has also been polluted by the raw sewage which is dumped into it that it is no longer fit for drinking.”

 The landscape has also significantly changed over the last decade in comparison to what it was around twenty years ago when Powai was largely uninhabited. SKSaksena of AGNI says, “Acres of jungle have been cleared to make way for skyscrapers, restaurants and offices even though these are no development zones, and because of this the population has increased exponentially.” Powai used to be known for its cooler climate in comparison to the rest of the city but the recent increase in population as well as the construction boom has led to a rise in temperature. “At one point Powai was almost like a hill station due to its cooler weather and it was necessary to wear warm clothes from November onwards, but things have changed since then. The temperature has risen considerably by at least 2-3 degrees and the only cool spot left in Powai is in IIT”, says Saksena.

With the way things are looking currently, it seems that the situation is only going to get worse and Powai, once untouched, is gradually turning into a concrete jungle.  The only remedy for this situation is for the residents of the area to band together and protect Powai from any more degeneration. Failure to do so will result in irrevocable damage and Powai will soon end up on the long list of suburbs which have been environmentally degraded and ecologically damaged forever.