Green Belt Development for Industries in Turbhe, Navi Mumbai.

Green-belt conditions on Turbhe plots meet unforgiving ground: a skin of soil over rock towards the hills, rammed fill near the road, and dust settling everywhere. Saplings dropped straight into it rarely last. We count the survivors in the existing belt, dig pits and trenches and fill them with good earth, and plant hardy, pollution-tolerant natives thickly on the edges that face the settlements and the highway, where a screen helps most. MPCB counts living trees, so we record the survival count every year.

Turbhe marks the southern tail of the TTC belt, where chemical works, engineering shops and warehouses fill the ground from the highway back to where the Parsik range rises. The name also covers a busy transport hub: a truck terminal, a station on the Trans-Harbour line, and dense settlements that have grown up on the hill slopes and around old quarries. The municipal landfill lies nearby. Vashi's and Sanpada's housing sectors begin just across the road. Few parts of Navi Mumbai are more industrial, or more crowded, and lorries fill its roads at most hours.