For two days now, Mumbai’s ‘Kashi ghat’ or Banganga Tank at Walkeshwar has been in news for all the wrong reasons. First, work on the steps flanking the tank was delayed by months, for obscure reasons. The old stairs were to be replaced by steps made of black stone, which was specially procured from Kolhapur. Construction work that began in January was supposed to have been completed before monsoon. Instead, it the projected got delayed and, till date, no signs of completion can be seen on the horizon. In fact, it won’t come as a surprise if the construction gets delayed by six to eight months again.

Meanwhile, material from the old steps was dumped into Banganga for, apparently, there was no other place to dump it. And, like every year, thousands of fish have died at this historical site because Pitrupak­sh rituals require food and flour to be immersed into water. The fish suffered a cruel death caused by suffocation.