Despite Bombay high court order for tidy beaches, BMC fails to clean Shivaji Park shore

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) boasts of collecting 40 metric tonnes of garbage from the city’s beaches every day.

But there are several seafronts, like the Shivaji Park Chowpatty, that they seem to have turned a blind eye to.

Residents claim that the Shivaji Park beachfront, which stretches from Kirti College to Mahim, has been neglected. “The contractor roped in to clean the shore is paid Rs30,000 for a day. But not once have any workers visited the area along my house to collect garbage,” said Dr Ravin Thatte, member of the G-North citizens’ forum.

Tonnes of plastic, liquor bottles, paper plates and cups are strewn across the beachfront. Residents complained that BMC’s vehicles, appointed to ferry the garbage to the dump yard, also do not perform their duties regularly.

This is despite the BMC’s decision in September to allot Rs1.5 crore to tidy the city’s coastline. The Bombay high court, too, had directed it to maintain the shoreline and submit a report outlining the measures adopted to clean the beaches.

“Walking on the beachfront is difficult. Even if the waste on the sandy stretch is cleared, the garbage left on corals and stones along the stretch is not. Despite several complaints, authorities have not responded,” said Arjun Jham, secretary of the Park Club, which is right across from the seafront.

However, a senior civic official claimed that the beach is cleaned up daily. “Workers pick the waste, and we have also deployed a vehicle to collect garbage.”

Mayor Shraddha Jadhav, who also stays along the beachfront, said the area ought to be maintained. “If there are any spots on the stretch that have been overlooked, we will clean them on a war footing,” she added.