Locals raise a stink over clogged drain in Santa Cruz

Residents of Relief Road in Santa Cruz (West) are a worried lot. Despite repeated complaints to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the nullah leading up to the Relief Road housing societies has not been cleaned, widened and desilted for the past five years now.

According to locals, though the BMC's storm water drain (SWD) department has cleaned the nullah near SNDT campus, the stretch from the SNDT campus to SRA scheme and further up to the Relief Road housing societies has become clogged with plastic bags and waste.

Secretary of the Relief Road Housing Societies Association Raghavanand Haridas said, "We have filed repeated complaints before H (West) and K (West) ward officials, as it falls on the border of the two wards, and even raised the issue during ALM meetings. But to no avail.”

Haridas added, "After the 2005 deluge, the area was visited by the then BMC commissioner Johny Joseph, who had ordered a cleaning of the nullah. Since then, we are yet to see another cleaning."

Stating that the monsoons hit them the hardest, Haridas said, "With garbage  clogging up the stretch, it is a breeding ground for mosquitoes.”

Also, given the area's closeness to the sea, there is routine flooding during every high tide.

Meanwhile, ward officials are reluctant to attend to this longstanding problem as shifting blame is more convenient, allege residents. "It does not matter whose jurisdiction the nullah falls under. It should be cleaned at the earliest because it poses a health risk for residents," said Shyama Kulkarni, trustee of Agni, the NGO.

However, SWD officials rubbished the allegations. A senior SWD official said, "The locals are habituated to throwing garbage in the nullah, leading to clogging." The nullah will be cleaned during  the civic body's pre-monsoon nullah-cleaning drive to be completed by May-end, he added.