Thane, Sep 19 (PTI) A CCTV camera network to keep a watch on mangrove belts in the Mumbai region would be installed soon, officials have said.
The Maharashtra forest department on Wednesday floated a tender for the Rs 120-crore project and released a Request for Proposal.
With 669 cameras and a centralised monitoring system, the video surveillance will cover 195 sensitive mangrove zones in Mumbai, Thane, Bhiwandi, Navi Mumbai, Panvel and Uran, officials said.
S V Rama Rao, head of the forest department's Mangrove Cell, said the high-priority project also seeks to assure people that the environment is being protected and nurtured.
B N Kumar, director of non-profit NatConnect Foundation who was campaigning for CCTV surveillance, expressed happiness over the development while claiming that mangroves and wetlands have been under attack by land mafia and the construction industry which dumps debris in wetlands.
The proposed network, however, should also cover mangrove belts under the jurisdiction of government agencies such as CIDCO and JNPA, he added.