Critics say massive road and real estate projects in the area have also made the region unstable. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest land has been cleared since 2007. Often, plots of encroached land are sold to builders for constructing housing complexes, says Kishore Rithe, a member of the Maharashtra state wildlife board and a conservation expert. The other menace is construction or widening of roads where mud is simply pushed down the slope. This chokes water channels and destroys vegetation that holds the soil together, he adds. A massive anti-encroachment drive by the Pune district administration in 2011 failed to rein in the errant builders. Environmental activists say that unless the wanton destruction of this ecologically fragile area is stopped immediately, the region will continue to face disasters similar to what happened in Malin. bbc/news/world-asia-india-28579668
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 16:54:22 +0000