High-rises or slums, their crap is flowing straight into our rivers and sea
There has been outrage after a front page report in this paper about a first-of-its-kind survey by BMC's Storm Water Drains department revealing that 76,425 out of the city's nearly 3.5 lakh sewage lines are illegally dumping untreated toxic waste into the ocean.
High-rises or slums, their crap is flowing straight into our rivers and sea. Nearly a fifth of Mumbai, over 76,000 properties, is discharging untreated sewage into stormwater drains that are meant solely for rainwater. These drains then empty the sewage into the rivers or the sea. The survey throws up data that these 76,000-odd street connections are flowing into SWDs and nullahs or are discharging raw sewage into rivers like the Mithi, Oshiwara, Dahisar and Poisar.
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The BMC has to strictly monitor residential societies' sewerage connections. Why is there a failure to connect buildings to the main sewerage lines? Who is supposed to answer these questions? Have the civic authorities moved on the survey results? When we are moving forward to tackle environmental issues, we have to see that there is a holistic approach. There is little point in banning plastic and becoming proactive on the go green front, and talking about Swachchta abhiyaan when we falter on other aspects.
Festivals have made eco-friendly fashionable. Green Ganpatis have become the top trending topic during Ganesh Chaturthi. This shows that there has been a spike in awareness. Beach cleaning drives are being driven by citizens who stoically refuse to despair as even more waste seems to seep into our waters. While we are taking a few steps ahead, we are still negligent on others as this BMC survey shows. Only an all-round effort and attention to every aspect of the environment will ensure that collective initiatives bear fruit.
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