The BMC’s ambitious plan to desilt all the city’s nullahs may come
to naught. An alleged officialcontractor nexus is ensuring that instead of
silt, debris from private sites is dumped at the dumping ground.
On Thursday, Rajendra Lad, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena corporator from
Chembur caught nine trucks offloading debris instead of silt at the Deonar
dumping ground. “This has been going on since April 1 when the desilting
work started. Contractors do not clean nullahs. They rather pick up debris
from construction sites for a fee and dump it at the dumping yard in the
name of silt. They also receive payment for the silt that is recorded as
having been cleared from the nullahs,” he said.
This year the BMC has awarded a Rs 18-crore contract for desilting
nullahs before the monsoon. Previously nullahs were desilted in phases, but
since 26/7, nullahs are cleaned completely before the monsoon and regularly
cleaned during the monsoon.
That debris is being dumped instead of silt also reveals a complete lack
of supervision on the nature of refuse being brought to the dumps. The BMC
had installed close circuit cameras to prevent such misuse. However, the
cameras are yet to become functional. “We have been told that they will be
functional from Friday,” said Lad.
R A Rajeev, additional municipal commissioner in charge of solid waste
management, said he had not received any information on the alleged fraud
but said he would take action. Last month, the administration had caught 22
trucks illegally dumping debris at the dump. All the staff concerned were
transferred, he said.
RAISING A STINK: BMC’s site engineers who inspected the Deonar dumping
ground found that slum children were segregating the garbage, security
guards on duty were missing, garbage was being illegally dumped on
mangroves, and unauthorised ragpickers and cattle had free entry into the
ground due to the lack of a compound wall