Gayatri Ramanathan: The green crusader

BACKSTAGE

Debi Goenka is one name to reckon with when it comes to environmental protection in Mumbai. In the past month alone, two court rulings that will have a major impact on Mumbai's fragile ecology bear his name "" one on the NTC mill land sale and another on protecting mangroves in the city.

The two are the latest in a long string of public interest litigation (PIL) cases stretching back over two decades. In February this year, Goenka's Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG) challenged the sale of NTC mill lands on the ground that the sale was in violation of development control rules (DCR).

Goenka himself remains publicity-shy. The mainstay of BEAG describes himself as a employee of the organisation and says, "I would rather like you to write about the organisation".

Ever since the BEAG stopped a fertiliser factory from being set up on the outskirts of Mumbai in the late 1970s, it has been non-stop campaigns for Goenka and his colleague Shyam Chainani.

Other notable ones include getting the Rewas-Mandwa mangroves notified in the mid-1980s, which led to the Coastal Regulation Zone notification; getting a regional planning authority set up for Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani; and stopping a motorable road from being built right through the reserved forest at Tungareshwar.

"This is our last chance to get some green space for the island city. Although the Central government has decided to appeal against the court decision, I don't think they will have much chance at the Supreme Court," says the seasoned campaigner.

So, every time a tree is cut in the city, Goenka's phone rings furiously. "I wish people would take responsibility for their surroundings and locality. You can't expect an NGO to drop everything and run to their aid when they don't want to take on responsibility for their concerns," he says matter of factly.

His recipe for success is to bombard the chief minister's office with protests and act on the concerns. "If Iqbal Chagla and his whole team can take a month off their calenders for working on PILs with us, I don't see why the rest of us can't."

Chagla is the lawyer who drafted the PIL. Goenka may have won the battle but he knows for sure that he still has to win the war.

"We cannot go on confronting government on every single issue. What we need are policies that allow rural folks access to a decent livelihood in their surroundings so they don't have to come to cities like Mumbai. This will help ease the pressure on the metros. Only then can we look at sustainable development in the cities," he says. Nobody can dispute that.