In a significant development, after change in power in Maharashtra, newly formed Maharashtra government has given the additional charge of managing director of the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) to Ashwini Bhide, a 1995 batch IAS officer. She is popularly known as the ‘Metro Woman’. Bhide is currently posted as Additional Commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation after being removed from the post of MD of Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) in May 2020.
The decision was taken by Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who wants the Metro 3 project, connecting Navy Nagar and SEEPZ, implemented immediately.
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that during the tenure of the BJP government, 25 per cent work has been done on the site cleared by the Supreme Court in Aarey area and the remaining 75 per cent work can be done immediately. He defended the decision of the new government and said that the Metro should be started at the earliest in the interest of Mumbaikars, while the work on the car shed in Aarey should continue.
The work was held up as the then Sena minister Aaditya Thackeray wanted a Metro car shed in Kanjur Marg, as against the original plan at Aarey Milk colony, a property of the dairy development department. Fadnavis, during his previous tenure as Maharashtra CM had chosen Aarey Milk colony, a move which was opposed by environmentalists as the project demanded a lot of trees to be chopped. Fadnavis is likely to carry out his original plans again.
Bhide headed the MMRC from 2015 to 2019 and had met with much opposition with the tree cutting in Aarey as environmentalists said that this was a habitat of leopards and other fauna from neighbouring Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
