BMC begins cleaning of Mumbai nullahs, Rs 257 crore to be spent

MUMBAI: The yearly ritual of cleaning all of the city's major and minor nullahs and also Mithi river prior to the onset of monsoons has begun this year. Around Rs 257 crore would be spent on it, off which around Rs 82 crore will be spent on the cleaning of Mithi river alone. However, officials said that last year they had to put labourer's in three shifts as cleaning works had begun only in April. This year to avoid such a scenario, the BMC has already begun work.
Each year the BMC removes nine lakh plus metric tonnes of silt. Of this around 75% of silt is removed prior to monsoon while the remaining is removed during and after monsoon. A civic official said that payments to the contractors are made only after checking the works and also all the photos and videos of the work undertaken. "Like last year, this year too there is a system to track the unloading of the silt i.e. at which place it is taking place and a picture also needs to be taken to show if silt was actually loaded in it," said an official.
The contractor hired by the BMC is expected to make use of man power and machinery to remove silt as well as floating material in the form of garbage and plastic. This year in the absence of elected representatives the civic body would need to ensure that all nullahs are well desilted as in the previous years, in case of any shortcomings corporators would raise the issue in the civic statutory meetings.
Advocate and activist Godfrey Pimenta, blamed citizens for throwing garbage in the nullahs due to which such a situation arises. "The BMC is doing its duty, however, such a situation would not have risen if citizens would not act irresponsible and throw garbage in the nullahs. The BMC should try to place some kind of a wire mesh upon the nullahs, so that garbage thrown into the nullah is stopped and does not enter into it. Besides, awareness of the consequences of throwing garbage into the nullahs should also be made by placing banners at these sites," said Pimenta.
Further Chembur resident Rajkumar Sharma, also said that it is the citizens, who by throwing garbage into the nullahs are creating a situation that leads to flooding. "When are we as citizens going to learn our duty of keeping the nullahs clean. While the BMC hires contractors to clean the nullahs every year before monsoon but then when June comes again we see that they have garbage floating in them," said Sharma.