The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has given the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) 15 days to implement its plan to mitigate dust at Dadar’s Shivaji Park. MPCB chairman Siddhesh Kadam who visited Shivaji Park on Monday, speaking with FPJ said, “It was in last March the MPCB had issued notice to BMC to address the complaints of dust pollution at Shivaji Park. The BMC has planned to remove the soil layer to control dust pollution but hasn’t implemented it yet. If within 15 days, the civic body does not act, MPCB will take action accordingly,” Kadam said.
On December 29, FPJ had reported that after a failed beautification project at Shivaji Park, where a thick layer of red soil was dumped for ground levelling, the BMC now wants to remove 9 inches of the layer from the ground. The G-North ward has submitted the proposal to the BMC Commissioner for approval after the study report of the Indian Institute of Technology. “I have asked my team to take input from other institutions, including IIT. Dust pollution at Shivaji Park is a long-standing problem,” Kadam said.
The residents of Dadar’s Shivaji Park area have been complaining about the dust pollution for a couple of years. However, the issue came to limelight amid the worsening air quality index in Mumbai since last month.
In the historic 28-acre big Shivaji Park, 70 percent area is plain ground and 30 percent is the green patch. “It was four to five years ago that the BMC had put red soil on the ground as part of its beautification project. However, the ground has a high footfall and it was a failed project,” a civic officer said.
