Mumbai’s desalination plant has brought the city’s water-security ambitions into direct conflict with the environmental cost of building new infrastructure. Of the 971 trees identified on the 12-hectare parcel being used for the ongoing phase of the Manori project, only four are proposed to be retained, while 967 may be affected.
According to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials cited by Mid-Day, 28 trees, including large and old trees, may have to be cut. Another 939 trees, described as mostly younger date palms and ornamental ferns, are proposed to be transplanted within the project’s boundary. The proposal is moving through the civic administration and has reached the office of the BMC superintendent of gardens and tree officer for a hearing.
That process places the tree proposal at an important institutional stage. The tree officer is expected to invite suggestions, objections and recommendations before sending the matter to the municipal secretary. It will then go before the Tree Authority Committee, chaired by the municipal commissioner and currently comprising 25 members. The committee can approve or reject the proposal, seek changes or impose additional instructions.
The sequence matters because the tree decision is not separate from the infrastructure project. It is one of the mechanisms through which the city is expected to examine whether the environmental consequences of construction have been counted, reduced or compensated. In this case, the project has received larger Coastal Regulation Zone and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change permissions, while tree-related permissions are still awaited.
The Manori facility is intended to become Mumbai’s first desalination plant. The ongoing phase covers 12 hectares within a larger project area of around 29 hectares. The project began on December 15, 2025, and is scheduled to achieve an initial capacity of 200 million litres per day by December 2029. An expansion to 400 million litres per day is planned for the latter half of 2030, according to the project details reported by Mid-Day.
These numbers show why the proposal has significance beyond a single parcel of land. A desalination plant is being planned as an additional source of water for a city whose supply depends heavily on large surface reservoirs and long-distance infrastructure. The project therefore represents an attempt to increase the resilience of Mumbai’s water system. But the reported tree impact demonstrates that resilience infrastructure also creates land-use decisions with local ecological consequences.
The current proposal has generated a dispute over whether transplantation can adequately address that cost. A civic official told Mid-Day that the 939 trees would be transplanted within the project land, avoiding a change in land and weather conditions and improving their chances of survival. The proposal may also be subject to compensatory plantation ordered by the Tree Authority.
Environmental campaigners have questioned whether those safeguards are sufficient. Godfrey Pimenta, trustee of the Watchdog Foundation, said the need to provide additional water could not justify avoidable environmental destruction. He called for alternative sites and designs to be examined and for the details to be made available for public scrutiny. Stalin D, director of Vanashakti, said transplantation was expensive and difficult to execute successfully, and questioned whether the BMC could deliver it properly on the ground.
The disagreement exposes a familiar weakness in urban infrastructure debates: the project’s public purpose is often clear, while the basis for choosing a particular site or design remains less visible. In the Manori case, the supplied report does not establish whether alternative parcels, layouts or construction methods were examined, nor does it provide an independent assessment of the proposed transplantation plan. Those questions are therefore likely to be central to the hearing and the Tree Authority’s consideration.
The tree count itself has also become contested. Pimenta alleged that local residents had heard that the BMC had not counted the trees accurately. A civic official rejected that allegation as baseless and said the count covered only the current 12-hectare phase, where the trees were date palms and ornamental ferns. The distinction between the current phase and the wider 29-hectare project area will be important for public understanding: the reported figure of 971 trees applies to the land currently being developed, not necessarily to the entire planned project footprint.
This distinction also illustrates the administrative challenge facing the project. A large infrastructure proposal is being delivered in stages, with the first 12 hectares linked to an initial 200-million-litre-per-day capacity and the remaining land reserved for expansion. Decisions taken for the current phase may therefore shape how later phases are assessed, even though the report does not establish the tree impact of the expansion area.
The institutional framework offers several opportunities for scrutiny, but its effectiveness will depend on the information placed before the decision-makers. The superintendent of gardens and tree officer will first conduct the hearing process. The Tree Authority Committee can then examine the proposal and impose conditions. The BMC has said it is following due process and remains confident that the project will not face setbacks.
For residents, the issue is not simply whether trees are cut or transplanted. It is whether the city can explain the trade-off between a new water source and the loss or relocation of existing vegetation in a way that is transparent, measurable and enforceable. A transplantation commitment on paper is not the same as a demonstrated survival outcome, while compensatory plantation is meaningful only if its location, maintenance and survival are tracked.
The evidence currently confirms that 967 of the 971 trees identified on the ongoing phase may be affected, that 28 are proposed for cutting and 939 for transplantation, and that the required tree permissions have not yet been granted. It does not establish the final decision, the survival rate of transplanted trees, the findings of the forthcoming hearing or whether alternative sites and designs were formally assessed. Those are the developments that will determine whether the Manori desalination project becomes a stronger water-security asset without weakening public confidence in Mumbai’s environmental approvals.
