Mumbai: The illegal dumping of waste and debris has become the biggest menace in the city. During the deep cleaning drive held on Saturday, the BMC cleared 157 metric tonnes (MT) of construction and demolition (C & D) debris and 23 MT of waste such as furniture, beds etc. Between November 2023 to May 31, the BMC collected Rs 50 lakh in 820 such cases.
On a recent visit to desilting work carried out in the city, the senior officials noticed debris dumped on the roadside in several places. Additional municipal commissioner (projects) Abhijit Bangar has instructed the civic officials to immediately lift the debris from roads to avoid inconvenience to the citizens in the monsoon. As per civic officials, the second-highest number of complaints are received about C&D debris illegally dumped on roads.
The highest number of complaints were received from Bhandup (245) and Govandi (151) and Kurla (65), while 61 complaints were received from Dongri and Bhendi Bazaar areas At present, the city is witnessing several infrastructural projects and construction activities. "We started a debris on-call service for lifting and disposing of construction waste up to 300 metric tonnes at nominal charges. Still, it has been noticed that unknown people dump debris on the road mostly during the night," said a civic official.
To track the culprits, a civic team in several wards have kept vigil for such illegal activities in their respective areas. However, the efforts to prevent illegal dumping have failed. Meanwhile, to deal with the problem, the BMC is all set to start work on processing 1,200 tonnes of C & D waste at two plants in the eastern and the western suburbs. Each centre will have a minimum processing capacity of 70 tons per hour (TPH) and will process a minimum of 600 tons per day (TPD) of C&D. These plants will process debris and manufacture precast products such as paver blocks etc. The products will be sold by the contractor.
