Mumbai: Blanket of trash on Poisar falsifies BMC's tall claims of desilting work

While BMC claims to have completed over 85 per cent of nullah cleaning work, a survey of Poisar river tributary carried out by members of citizen group River March, which has been campaigning for the revival of four rivers in the city, paints a conflicting image.

Four members of River March — Sagar Vira, Anil Pandya, Adv Bhagyashree Mahale and Pankaj Trivedi — who were out on May 26 carrying out a recce along Poisar river for an upcoming clean-up drive, were taken aback witnessing the condition of the river and its tributaries, which were chocked with garbage and trash.

The members then decided to survey a 1km stretch of Poisar river tributary and capture its sorry state in pictures. "We surveyed a tributary of Poisar river —the stretch between SV Road, Kandivali (west) near Mayfair building and Kandivali (east) Bihari tekdi, Janta Nagar. What we saw clearly indicates how haphazardly the cleaning work has been carried out," said Sagar Vira, adding a thick and fetid mosaic of plastic, solid, human and fabric waste blankets stretches of the tributary.

There were several stretches which showed no sign of cleaning activities being carried out. Speaking to local residents, the team got to know that BMC contractors and JCB did carry out clean-up drive, yet most of the garbage was left in the river.

Vira said that given the fact that the BMC spends hundreds of crores on contractors for desilting activities, the group has decided to carry out more such surveys along Dahisar, Poisar and Oshiwara rivers. "We will form small teams of River Marchers who will carry out such surveys in designated stretches and compile a report before submitting it to BMC seeking action," he informed.