Locals at Dhobighat may get rid of foul smell

The residents around Dhobighat will soon have cleaner air to breathe. The Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) will make it mandatory for all the washermen to use electric furnace instead of traditional wooden fuelled furnace to boil water and treat clothes with chemicals.

The traditional wooden furnaces were a major problem for the residents of the area as they polluted the surrounding environment. There are 330 units at Dhobighat in Mahalaxmi which use 8,875 kg woods everyday. At times, in case of shortage of wood, washermen use waste cardboards, cloth pieces and also rubber tyres which emit a lot of smoke and unbearable foul smell. This, in fact, causes respiratory problems for the residents.

Shiv Sena corporator Chandrakant Pugaonkar had proposed to the civic administration that all the 330 units should have chimneys which will allow the smoke to let out at a certain height. However, civic administration said that it would be difficult to allow such a huge number of chimneys at one place and that the idea of electric furnace would rather work well.

Also, the washermen uses machines instead of washing the clothes by beating them on hard rocks, especially used for the purpose. These machines are used for washing and spinning the clothes so that they are half dried. "Since Dhobighat is under civic jurisdiction, BMC will be able to persuade them to switch to electric furnace instead of using wood," said a civic official.