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Mumbai: Trash reclaims Bandra station plot

BMC, WR pass buck as rubbish makes a comeback days after 100-tonne waste cleared

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BMC carted off 100 metric tonnes of trash on July 25, but slum dwellers took no time in turning it back into a dump yard
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Lakhs of commuters who take the Bandra station footbridge daily to make it to the eastern side cannot believe that the all-powerful Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation as well as the Western Railway have failed to save a giant piece of the latter's land from garbage.

The plot, adjacent to the tracks in Bandra (East), has long been packed with mountains of stinking waste, much of it plastic, which is discarded by the nearby shantytown.

There was a brief period of tidiness in between when, after DNA's June 27 report on the trash piles on the plot, BMC trucked off 100 tonnes of trash from the plot, leaving it near-clean on July 25.

But the spruceness was short-lived. Unbridled littering by the slum dwellers without fear of any consequences has returned the plot of land to being a landfill.

The rubbish has made a comeback even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to shun single-use plastic in his Independence Day speech, and even though such plastic is banned across the state and the city.

Assistant municipal commissioner Ashok Khairnar (H-East ward) said his staff conducted three special drives to clean the plot. "But huge mounds of garbage is daily dumped on this plot. WR should also show some responsibility and ensure that the plot is barricaded or developed to stop people from dumping trash on it," he said.

WR officials called it a "civic issue", saying it was BMC's job to ensure slums have a waste management system so their dwellers don't dirty the plot. "We are trying to meet with NGOs to see how we can beautify the plot, but it will take time. For now, we request BMC to disallow littering on the plot," an official said.

Senior BMC officials said the slum dwellers responsible for littering threatened civic workers during clean-up drives. "They threatened our staff on some occasions. They want to continue dumping garbage on the plot," said an official involved in the operation.

A local activist who has been raising this issue said it was a shame the civic and railway authorities were not able to stop the local slum dwellers from littering on the plot.

Both BMC and WR can keep watch and impose hefty heavily fines for littering here, she suggested, unwilling to be named.

"BMC comes and cleans up the plot as per their schedule, without involving WR. The latter is also not involving BMC in its planning of beautifying the site. Unless both make a joint visit and involve activists, corporators and residents of the slums, the problem will never be resolved," she said.

When DNA spoke about the recurrent problem with the officials concerned at the BMC and WR, both sides agreed to have a joint site inspection soon.

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