With barely 45 days to go before the monsoon begins, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has woken up to realise that a part of their responsibility is also to clean up the Mithi river. The authority has now called for tenders worth a whopping Rs30 crore and expects the work to clean up Mithi to be completed before monsoon.
“MMRDA is all ready to combat heavy rains, high tides and related issues as it invites tenders for the pre-monsoon de-silting of Mithi river, Vakola Nullah and few other nullahs in ‘H’ and ‘I’ Blocks in the Bandra-Kurla Complex. The Rs30-crore work is undertaken with a view to improve the overall discharging capacity of Mithi,” says a written statement issued by the authority. It further says that the tenders will be accepted till May 11.
“The Mithi has not raised its ugly head ever since the authority undertook the challenge of cleaning, de-silting, widening and deepening the river in 2006. The overall capacity of Mithi to hold, carry and discharge water has increased by 1.5 times since the clean up. We have also constructed a 7km long retaining wall along Mithi”, said MMRDA spokesperson Dilip Kawathkar. However, there was no mention of the total silt removed by the authority in the past few years.
