Even as officials of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) have requested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to check the 'fitness' of Tulsi lake dam built by Britishers in 1879, given the fact that the Dahisar river had seen a severe flooding on August 3 — second time since 2017 — the BMC has assured them that they have already asked an expert agency to expedite the structural auditing of this dam.
A senior forest official confirmed that they have been corresponding with BMC regarding the structural audit of the dam since August 29,2017, when SGNP witnessed one of its worst floods after the 2005 deluge.
"Early this month the entire park was flooded yet again post the heavy downpour. Given the fact that the Tulsi dam is an ancient structure and can lead to a huge catastrophe in case compromised, we have expressed our concerns and sent reminders to BMC for carrying out auditing at priority," said the official adding that the last auditing was done post-2005 floods.
A senior BMC official from the Water Supply Projects department said that they have already paid Rs 20 lakh to the Nashik based Central Designs Organization (CDO), which is part of the Water Resources Department of the Maharashtra Government and has begun carrying out auditing for Tulsi, Vihar and Powai dam.
"Since the SGNP officials have expressed their concerns over the Tulsilake dam, we have asked the CDO to take up the work of auditing Tulsidam on priority," said the official adding that based on the recommendations of the CDO the civic body will take up any work that will be required for strengthening not just Tulsi but other two dams as well.
However, activists to have raised concerns over the fact that if anything happened to the dam, life of lakhs of people living acrossDahisar, Borivali as well as Kandivali would be at risk. Gopal Jhaveri, founder of River March, a citizen's movement for rejuvenating four rivers of Mumbai said that they welcome the decision of BMC to ask CDO to audit the Tulsi dam.
"However, given the factthat, the safety of dam concerns life of humans, wildlife and even property, BMC needs to also appoint an independent agency for carrying out a structural audit of the Tulsi dam and not just depend on one department. Having two opinions will prove to be greatly beneficial," he said adding that also all the recommendation should also be made public on the BMC website.
