The National High Speed rail Corporation (NHSRCL) was granted permission by the bombay high court on friday to cut down approximately 22,000 mangrove trees in mumbai and the nearby districts of thane and Palghar for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, which is currently under construction. When the work is started, NHSRCL will have to abide by a number of terms and conditions outlined in the approvals granted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) and the maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA), said the bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Abhay Ahuja.

In order to comply with a 2018 order by a co-ordinate bench, the NHSRCL has applied to the high court for authority to cut down mangrove trees. The decree has completely halted the removal of mangrove trees. However, parties could ask the high court for the required authorization if such felling was necessary for a project of public interest. In his appearance on behalf of the NHRSCL, attorney Pralhad Paranjape informed the court that the amount of mangrove trees to be cut down for the project had been decreased from over 50,000 to roughly 22,000 trees.

The NHSRCL would plant five times as many trees as were planned to be cut down, according to Paranjape's assurance. He revealed that the MOEFCC and the MCZMA had advised moving two platforms somewhat away from the mangroves so as to lessen the amount of trees that would be impacted. The NHSRCL agreed to this, and the total number of trees affected decreased from 53,467 to about 22,000 as a result.

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