MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday pulled up the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) over garbage dumping on Mumbai’s roads and directed it to clear waste accumulation around prominent heritage sites within seven days, warning that ward officers would be held personally responsible if the civic body failed to act.
A division bench of justices GS Kulkarni and Aarti Sathe passed the directions while hearing a clutch of petitions, including one filed by Kannamwar Cooperative Housing Society in Vikhroli through advocate Abhijeet P Rane over the persistent foul odour and gas emissions from the Kanjurmarg landfill.
Expressing concern over what it termed the “total mismanagement of collection of waste materials”, the court observed that a large number of municipal garbage trucks were being stationed daily near some of the city’s most prominent heritage landmarks, including the Institute of Science, Rajabai Tower, Bombay City Civil Court, Bombay High Court and Horniman Circle.
“It is impossible to believe that a booth for the garbage vehicles is being set up near the heritage sites where a large number of tourists from all over the world visit and the insurmountable difficulties which are required to be faced in view of the queue of garbage trucks parked opposite such heritage sites, and the nuisance and the odour created,” the bench remarked.
The court directed the BMC to remove the accumulated waste around these heritage sites within seven days and warned that the concerned ward officers would be answerable if the situation was not rectified.
Observing that the police machinery must deal with any “resistance and to discipline the unruly citizens”, the bench directed ward officers to seek police assistance wherever required to maintain basic standards of public health and hygiene. It also ordered authorities to initiate civil or criminal action against those who continue to dump waste on public streets in violation of the law, causing damage to public property and creating serious health and hygiene hazards.
