Mira-Bhayandar: The Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) boasts of bagging the first spot in the state level Majhi Vasundhara (My Earth) Abhiyan for its environment friendly initiatives, however, farmlands and water bodies in their own backyard are being contaminated and subjected to irreparable damage due to leachate water trickling down the hills littered with garbage in Dhaavgi village near Uttan in Bhayandar.
MBMC needs to achieve 100 percent segregation
Irked over the menace, villagers in the coastal areas of Uttan have threatened to launch an agitation against the MBMC. To tackle the burgeoning garbage woes, the MBMC needs to achieve 100 percent segregation. However, the segregation figures continue to hover below 70 percent. The remaining unsegregated garbage, termed as legacy waste, has accumulated and transformed into a thrash mountain which has been rising for the past more than seven years.
Fishermen to launch agitation if menace doesn't end
After ascertaining the exact quantity of the thrash as 9.09 lakh metric tonnes, a Nashik-based agency was roped in to clear the garbage hills using the bio-mining mechanism and bring the land to its original form, before the onset of monsoon. However, the bio-mining work is going at a snail’s pace, the villagers have alleged. “We are fed up with the menace. Earlier we were grappling with the unbearable stench and now the leachate from the garbage hills is destroying our farmlands and polluting the sea. The situation will worsen during the monsoon. Officials enjoy the comfort of air conditioners and air-purifiers leaving the villagers at the mercy of god. We will not tolerate this further. All fishermen societies and local social organisations have written letters to the MBMC. If they do not put an end to the menace, we will be left with no other option but to launch an agitation,” fishing community leader Bernard D’mello said. When contacted, Deputy Civic Chief Kalpita Pimple said, "We have issued notices to the agency deployed for the bio-mining process for unsatisfactory work and unprecedented delays.”
The adverse impact on the environment is owing to its faulty geographical location of the dump-yard, allege villagers. Apart from eight to ten tonnes of industrial and bio medical waste, the MBMC is saddled with a daunting task of disposing of an overload of more than 450 metric tonnes of garbage by the twin-city every day.
