HC raps Maharashtra govt, BMC after sea dumps trash on Mumbai shores

Terming the incident of the sea throwing up tonnes of garbage along the Marine Drive here during a high tide as "serious", the Bombay High Court asked the Maharashtra government and the city civic body today for a solution to the problem.

A division bench of justices A S Oka and Riyaz Chagla was hearing a PIL filed by a city-based NGO, 'Citizens Circle for Social Welfare and Education', seeking direction to the authorities concerned to frame guidelines on garbage and debris disposal and its discharge into the sea.

The petitioner's lawyer, Shehzad Naqvi, pointed out to the court that earlier this month, around 9,000 tonnes of debris and garbage was spewed by the Arabian Sea along the Marine Drive promenade in south Mumbai during a high tide.

"This is a serious issue. What is the solution to this? There is so much of garbage, debris and sewage discharged into the sea. The civic body will have to do something about this," the court said.

The bench, after perusing a report submitted by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) in October last year, said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was discharging large quantities of untreated sewage into the sea.

"As per the report, out of 2,671 million litre of sewage per day, 2,016 million litre is treated at eight sewage treatment plants by the BMC. The remaining 655 million litre of untreated sewage is discharged directly into the sea at different locations," Justice Oka said.

"The recent incident at the Marine Drive has shown that the discharge of such a large quantities of untreated sewage in the sea is creating pollution," he said.

The court directed the BMC and a senior official of the state's Environment department to file their affidavits on August 10, enlisting steps to deal with the issue.