JUST BEFORE MONDAY
Meet Gopal Jhaveri, who co-founded the River March movement to rejuvenate the rivers in the city. Pooja Patel c.
If you’ve been reading about a bunch of people who’ve taken up the mammoth task of cleaning and rejuvenating Mumbai’s rivers, then chances are, you are familiar with Gopal Jhaveri’s name. The co-founder of a mass movement called River March, Jhaveri spearheaded this movement with just 1,700 people in 2015, which has now mobilised thousands. “When we conducted the first River March, I was hoping it would reach a lot of people, but never expected it to gain such momentum!” says Jhaveri, speaking on the massive support from the citizens. “Last year’s River March saw participation from 12,500 people and I am hoping to see more numbers this year.”
Most of us notice the environmental mess around the city, and choose to ignore it, but Jhaveri decided to take things into his hands. He attributes his action to a rather sad trigger. While on a morning walk with his friend in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, he came across a deer that had died due to consumption of plastic.
“Post mortem reports said that it had 3.5 kg of plastic inside its body,” he recalls. This set off an idea in Jhaveri’s mind and he decided that instead of just talking about the environmental issues, he’d act on it. With the help of friends and family members, Jhaveri started organising various activities. These ranged from cleaning the national park to make it plastic-free, conducting knowledge sessions at the BMC headquarters, running workshops, and of course, cleaning up rivers.
Jhaveri feels that Mumbai is one of the few blessed cities that has the sea, a national park, forests, lakes, mangroves and hillocks, all within its periphery. “This makes it extremely important for us to conserve it, but is a huge task. In fact, when we started talking about rejuvenating the rivers, people would look at us as if we were crazy.” he says.
The task to restore Mumbai’s four rivers — Mithi, Dahisar, Poisar, and Oshiwara — requires the support of several citizens as well as the civic body. But then, one step at a time is Jhaveri’s mantra. So the team has been focusing on cleaning up the Poisar river each year. In fact, last April, when they cleaned the river, the 30-member team collected 80,000 kg of garbage. The tiresome project only inspired his army of environmentally aware citizens to continue working further.
“There’s lot of work to do in the future and I am hoping this movement will enable us to do it. We all need to step up and take responsibility of our city’s rivers,” wraps up an optimistic Jhaveri.
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