Mumbai: A total of 315 hectares of forest land and over 80k trees will be felled across Palghar, Thane and Raigad districts to make way for the Mumbai-Vadodara Expressway (MVE), confirmed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
Clearing of forest is expected to commence within the next two months, while remaining clearances for felling of mangroves is pending with Bombay High Court (HC) and stage-1 forest clearance with the forest department.
The MVE is an eight-lane, 379-km greenfield expressway between Vadodara and Mumbai planned under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase VI and the Phase II, and will reduce travel time between the two cities to four hours from the current seven hours through the national highway (NH)-8.
