Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation mulls over wire meshing nullahs to prevent garbage dumping

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) seems to have devised a solution for the perennial problem of garbage dumping in nullahs. The civic body is mulling over the possibility of covering the nullahs with fencing and wire meshing.

The BMC officials have often blamed dumping of garbage by slum dwellers in water bodies for incidents of water logging in the city. According to the civic body, there are around 150 nullahs in the city, which could cause deluge-like situations this monsoon. As many as 21 of them are in the island city, 59 in the eastern suburbs and 69 in the western suburbs. The slums that have mushroomed around these nullahs continue to dump garbage in them, ruining the cleaning and de-silting efforts of the civic body.

"One way to prevent waste dumping is to cover the nullahs with fencing and wire meshing," said corporator Ramashish Gupta. He added that even though the civic body spends more than Rs 150 crore on de-silting and clean-up work, the nullahs continue to be in their worst condition. "With no control on garbage dumping, 100% de-silting and clean-up will never be possible," he said.

The Congress corporator added that the solution of fencing was not only possible, but also easy to implement. He claimed that his solution has found support from many other corporators cutting across the party lines. A detailed proposal in this regard is bound to appear for discussion in the House this month.

Meanwhile, the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department officials said the fencing-wire meshing solution will have to be studied from all aspects first. "Engineers will have to study feasibility, span and practical issues. Retention and boundary walls have been broken along the nullahs. The fencing and wire meshing can also be broken, stolen or ripped. There will be many other issues. We will have to analyse it," said a senior SWM official.