Monsoons have already hit the twin-city, however like every year, the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) is still not rain-ready in terms of de-silting work. If the shoddy pre-monsoon de-silting work of nullahs by the notorious cartel of contractors was not enough, the forest department has taken its own sweet time to give its nod for weeding out dead mangrove shrubs in creeks which were creating obstacles. Expressing their helplessness in cleaning over a dozen major water bodies owing to the presence of dense mangrove cover, the civic administration requested the mangrove cell of the forest department to conduct an inspection and award necessary permissions. After a primary visit on 27, May, the forest department conducted a panchnama of the wetlands and recently gave its nod for the removal of dead mangrove shrubs.
However, the civic administration will have to take proper care to ensure that none of the living mangrove shrubs or other flora is harmed during the weeding out process. Moreover, the civic administration will have to adopt a manual mechanism under the supervision of the forest ranger attached to the mangrove cell of the forest department. “We will weed out the dead mangrove shrubs in accordance with the guidelines given by the forest department. The work will be done by a joint team comprising personnel from our tree authority, fire brigade and health department,” said additional municipal commissioner-Dr. Sambhaji Panpatte.
The tedious task of weeding dead mangrove shrubs out of the major water bodies and creeks, which are choked with sludge, debris and muck, is time consuming, thus posing serious problems for low-lying area in the twin-city during heavy spell of rains, especially during high tides. There are a total of 155 major and minor nullahs in the twin-city which measure up to more than 240 km’s.
