BMC to illuminate all Mumbai beaches

Mumbai: After successfully illuminating the Juhu beach with colorful LED lights and keeping it open for public,now the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is going to light up all other beaches of Mumbai – Seven Bunglow Beach, Aksa Beach, Erangal Beach, Danapani Beach, Marve Beach, Manori Beach, Silver Beach and Gorai Beach – with colorful decorative lights except Girgaon Chowpathy beach.

Additional Municipal Commissioner (AMC) (Special Projects) Sanjay Mukherjee stated that Girgaon Chowpathy beach is not been included due to earlier Bombay High Court order regarding not to do anything over there.

“The Juhu beach beautification was an important phase as the airport is nearby, the flight passes from this beach, hence, now whoever sitting in flight will get the beautiful scene of Mumbai after the illumination. While the beautification project of other beaches have already been started and few other are pending before Standing committee meeting for final approval,” he said.

As Mumbai is known for its beaches, placing decorative colorful lights will enhance the appeal of the city as a tourist destination. Mukherjee said, “Due to enough lighting on beaches it will provide safe walking experience to the visitors. Along with lighting the beaches will also be kept free from littering. A combined drive with Solid Waste Management officials is been planned who will look after the beach cleaning and strict action will be taken against the appointed contractors who fail to do their work properly.”

It will cost BMC around Rs 50 -75 lakh for each beach beautification and illumination. While Awaaz Foundation, a Non Government Organisation (NGO) who helped Mumbai to get silence zones, has raised concern on the colorful flashing lights on beaches. Their study reveals harmful effects of light pollution caused by excessive lighting, a major cause of sleep deprivation, hormonal changes and other related illness.

Also read: Mumbai: BMC’s beach cleaning tender to adopt locals’ suggestions

Light pollution also causes damage to the environment and adversely affects other species such as birds. Therefore, a regulatory policy to balance the safety requirement of Mumbaikars has been demanded by the foundation to the state government.

Apart from BMC the citizens are also now actively coming forward showing concern for marine life. Afroz Shah, a common man and a resident of Mumbai, worried after seeing the garbage lying on Versova beach himself took the initiative of cleaning the seashore. His small step also encouraged many other to join him and his team successfully removed 500 million tonnes of garbage from this beach alone. Like Afroz, another 22-years-old college student named Malhar Kalambe with his group is now undertaking clean up drive at Dadar chowpathy beach every Sunday.

Kalambe has taken up the clean up drive to keep the identify of Mumbai alive as it is all known for its most populous beaches but piles of trash and sewage contamination have made them unsafe in recent years.