Declared shut, garbage still being taken to Mulund dump yard

Over a month after the city's second largest dumping ground, located in Mulund, was declared to be shut, one can still see garbage trucks making their way to the dump yard. Looks like Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is yet to find a 'muhurat' shut the dump yard and process the existing waste using the scientific method. Although the standing committee approved the proposal of Rs 731-crore five-year plan to reclaim the land and the work was supposed to start from October 1, the ground is still being dumpyard.

On Monday, Prabhakar Shinde, corporator from Mulund raised this issue in the standing committee meeting. "We, the residents of Mulund were elated when the dumpyard was declared to be shut. Rangolis were made, we celebrated the closure. Then reality hit hard, even today the garbage trucks are being emptied in the ground," Shinde said.

Speaking about the status of the process, Vishwas Shankarvar, deputy municipal commissioner of solid waste management department said, "The contractors have to take permission from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. They are waiting for the permission after which the process will start," said Vishwas Shankarvar, deputy municipal commissioner of solid waste management department.

The BMC had surpassed several deadlines to close the landfill, coming in for criticism from the High Court. The civic body invited tenders to close the dumping ground after continuous opposition from locals developed respiratory problems due to the smoke emanating from fires that frequently erupt at the ground. The first tender was floated in November 2015. It was followed by the second tender in October 2016 and the third in March 2017. However, the BMC officers rejected all the contractors who responded to tenders sighting their inability to use the latest technology to process waste. The tender was floated once again in February this year. In June 2018, the BMC appointed a consortium of Prakash Constrowell Ltd, Infotech International Ltd and EB Enviro Biotech Pvt Ltd to process the waste at the dump using the latest technology for Rs 731 crore.

Spread over 24 hectares of land, the Mulund dump yard had been in use since 1967. Of the 7,200 metric tonnes of garbage produced by the city every day, around 1.5 to 2 metric tonnes are dumped in Mulund. As per the official data, more than seven million cubic metres of waste, towering to 30 m in height has accumulated on the site.