The Bombay High Court has expressed strong dissatisfaction with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) waste management efforts, stressing that cleanliness in select parts of South Mumbai does not reflect conditions across the entire city.
A bench of Justices Girish S Kulkarni and Neela K Gokhale made the observations while hearing a plea concerning waste disposal at the Kanjurmarg landfill, along with garbage being dumped on roads, public spaces and beaches.
“Everywhere there is filth… Only because Worli is clean or South [Mumbai] is clean, or Nariman Point is clean, that doesn’t mean entire Mumbai is clean,” the bench orally remarked.
The court also highlighted the need for stronger systems and greater public awareness to discourage people from dumping waste in public areas. Justice Kulkarni said effective enforcement, surveillance and deterrents could encourage citizens to dispose of garbage responsibly.
“Once the system is in place and the citizens are also sensitised, one day will come that they will stop doing (throwing garbage on streets). And we are looking at Mumbai to be converted into that kind of city where people themselves will go and throw everything in the dustbin… That will happen as we do it when we go (abroad), because there are deterrents, there are cameras, but here (in Mumbai) there is absolutely no worry,” Justice Kulkarni said.
Senior advocate Anil Sakhare, representing the BMC, told the court that the overall “situation had improved”. However, the bench said it “did not find a very high progress” by civic ward officers in tackling sanitation and hygiene issues in public areas, including pavements, streets and hill slopes.
The court directed the BMC to submit a detailed affidavit outlining the measures taken by ward officials to verify ground realities and actions undertaken during Gandhi Jayanti under the ‘Swachhata Abhiyan’.
The judges also referred to a plastic-covered hill near a municipal school in Jogeshwari that they had observed while travelling to the Maharashtra Judicial Academy in Uttan, Bhayander.
“Can we believe that this is Mumbai? Simple cleaning will take no more than one day. Nothing has happened. It is unbelievable,” Justice Kulkarni said.
The bench may summon ward officers from western suburban areas and is also considering another inspection of the Kanjurmarg facility. The next hearing is scheduled for October 22.
Source: The Indian Express
