Mumbai: Bombay High Court has directed BMC to submit a report within 15 days to Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) on the host of compliances the latter had sought to prevent odour from the Kanjurmarg waste management facility. It has also instructed BMC to adopt urgent measures to ensure streets, bylanes and pavements across the city are garbage free.A bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Aarti Sathe, in the July 15 order available on Thursday, said the “issue of particulate matters, is one of the important concerns which the MPCB needs to monitor on a day-to-day basis and with its 24-hour monitoring mechanism”. MPCB said it has already implemented round-the-clock monitoring. The HC was hearing a petition on the issue of health hazards that local residents in the vicinity of the Kanjurmarg dumping ground and an NGO had raised.Expressing concern at the rise in plastic pollution and waste entering the sea, the HC called for urgent “grassroots level” measures, saying “without these issues of accumulation, collection, and disposal of solid waste, BMC would be confronted with a nuisance, which is self-inflicted by the residents of the city who are reckless and negligent on maintaining the basic civic expectations.”“A mechanism for systematic storage and collection of garbage needs to be immediately implemented in all the wards,” the HC ordered.In a slew of other directions, the HC sought “strict vigil be maintained by the ward officers or any other machinery that may be deployed against persons dumping garbage, plastic waste on public streets, and pavements, and strict action be taken against such persons as the law would determine”.The HC called for CCTV cameras at places where people are prone to dumping wastes, and directed the “municipal commissioner to devise a mechanism to sensitise people against throwing garbage and plastic waste into the sea, open drains and water bodies”.The HC also directed installation of nets or narrows at the confluence of drains and the sea to prevent plastics from entering the sea.The HC also directed installation of nets or narrows at the confluence of drains and the sea to prevent plastics from entering the sea. “All open nullahs need to be closed, so that all the ill-effects of such public waste and garbage being dumped into these nullahs are avoided. It is the need of the hour that open nullahs are converted into proper piped drains,” the HC directed, and to ensure a healthy compliance urged BMC to publicise “no-garbage” wards and reward them.Citizens too must meticulously follow rules and not dump garbage indiscriminately into nullahs and on streets, said the court, adding that discipline from citizens is expected, and the day won’t be far then where Centre rewards Mumbai.The HC will hear the matter next on August 12.
