BMC finds place to dump debris

City roads will soon present a smoother ride. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now take up works for the improvement of more than 60 roads, including major ones.

The works had been budgeted for and approved but got stalled after civic contractors refused to begin work owing to lack of a site to dump the road debris. After gates of the overburdened dumping grounds at Deonar and Mulund were closed for dumping of construction debris, the municipal corporation had been struggling to zero in on an alternate site to dump construction debris. Consequently, major infrastructure works taken up by the municipal corporation, suffered a delay.

Civic officials told DNA that an abandoned quarry at Azad Nagar in Ghatkopar has finally been identified as one of the sites where construction debris could be dumped. DL Shinde, chief engineer, roads and traffic, said, “We have got oral permission for the purpose from the suburban collectors’ office, which owns the land. A written clearance is expected in a day or two. Road works will begin as soon as the permission copy arrives.”

The BMC has already accepted a proposal for transporting and dumping construction debris at Kalamboli in Navi Mumbai, on a site being developed by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance in joint venture with the Cidco, as a special economic zone. 

By way of various construction and infrastructure projects, Mumbai generates close to 10,000 tonne of construction debris on a daily basis. Earlier, a fraction of this was dumped at the Deonar and Mulund dumping grounds. However, ever since the Gorai dumping ground was closed, the load of solid waste dumped at the two dumps increased.

In the absence of a dump site, the debris had been piling up on open plots and by the roadside. Civic officials were hopeful that these will now be cleared. The Ghatkopar dump can sustain a debris load for at least a year, Shinde said.