Supreme court upholding High court order of overturning City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) plans to relocate sports complex from Ghansoli sports to Nanore village in Mangaon has revived hopes among the sports fraternity of grooming newer talents from Navi Mumbai.
"The verdict to reserve land for Ghansoli Divisional Sports Complex by the SC is encouraging news for all the sports fraternity in Navi Mumbai. It's a long pending issue. Currently you can watch the District Sports Office (DSO) events for all the sports in Mumbai Zone are going on. It is very pathetic and unplayable conditions of grounds where the events are organised and with this we are hoping to develop Olympic medalist?," said Dhananjay Vanmali, Vice President, Maharashtra State Volleyball Association.
In the month of July 2024, the HC had overturned Government resolution of the year 2021 to shift the sports complex from Ghansoli to Nanore village in Mangaon taluka in Raigad district of Maharashtra.
The order was appealed by Cidco before the SC to quash the order. On September 27 SC while upholding HC order termed the intention to relocate the sports complex to a remote location as ' malafide'.
"In my view when the count of sports complex increases, the count of healthy youth and citizens would increase as well" adds Mali.
A state of art sports complex inspired from Pune based Balewadi sports complex as well as the New Delhi based Indira Gandhi sports complex was to be constructed by the state government at sector 12 of Ghansoli.
The much touted project ran into trouble after the findings that the plots 12 and 12 A reserved for the complex was tendered by CIDCO to a builder to construct residential buildings.
This led to the Indian institute of Architects filing a PIL in 2019.
"The judgement by SC is laudable as environmental activist have been shouting from rooftops that CIDCO has been selling all plots to builders, not sparing even an inch of open space,” NatConnect director B N Kumar, adding, "Our hopes in the judiciary as a guardian of the people's Constitutional right to a good environment have been vindicated with this laudable judgment,”
"The City of the 21st Century hardly has any space for sportspersons to practice as the various gymkhanas are meant for the elite who can afford membership fees running into lakhs of rupees,” Kumar argued. “The grounds allotted to schools are not open to the public. Hence, It is the responsibility of CIDCO and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) to provide sports equipment, training and practice,” he said and called for quickly developing the Ghansoli sports complexes. “The plot allotted to NMMC has also become a garbage dump," pointed out Kumar.
In wake of the judgement, state government is now asked by sports fraternity and environmental activist to review policy to sell all open plots in NMMC-controlled part of Navi Mumbai.
CJI observations - you know what has been done by the public bodies in Maharashtra? whatever green spaces remain - entirety of it is picked and given to builders. These then become urban sprawls where people have no place to play, no place to go- has been heralded by activist to be voicing the true events of the city.
"We fully agree with the observations of the CJI. Not only green spaces but also waterbodies & wetlands protected by Supreme Court orders ignoring those orders," said another green activist Sunil Agarwal.
Meanwhile, Cidco chose to not comment on the matter as it is subjudice.
