It may have recently been given the status of a ‘national lake’ but that hasn’t changed the sad reality that the Powai Lake is today a stinking, muddy water body in desperate need of cleaning up. But that’s exactly what the BMC has not done. Despite Rs 40 crore being allocated in 2011 for de-silting the lake, a mere Rs 4 crore of that amount has been spent on cleaning the filth — leaving behind a lake that stinks so badly that even morning walkers now steer clear of it.

Local resident Sudhir Shetty shows the place where garbage is regularly thrown into the Powai Lake. Pic/Sameer Markhande