‘Is this what clean looks like?’

Unclean nullah near Juhu Gully

Civic activists allege that the city's nullahs are as unclean as they have been in the past years, despite the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claim of having carried out 19 per cent more desilting as compared to previous years.

The civic body had started a WhatsApp chatbot on June 1 to address complaints regarding clogged nullahs, on directions from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. However, activists say complaints were being disposed of by the BMC which said the photos provided are of floating material. They also alleged that the civic body doesn't provide any proof of the desilting work carried out at a particular spot after complaints are made.

Krishna Nagar nullah near Marol Municipal Market

"I had uploaded a photo of an unclean nullah at Juhu Gully on WhatsApp on June 1. The chatbot asked for an image to be uploaded and for the location, registering a complaint on the same day. However, till Monday (June 12) the issue remained unresolved. The chatbot showed that the complaint number was reassigned on June 12," activist Zoru Bhathena said.

Since the chatbot was pressed into service, the BMC has received more than 400 complaints, but officials claimed that less than half of these are related to major nullahs and none of them are regarding related to improper desilting work. Instead, they are about garbage and floating material in the nullah. "How do we know that there is no silt beneath the floating material? Besides, we did not see any desilting going on prior to our complaint," Bhathena said.

According to activist Anil Galgali, the situation is the same as it has been over the past few years. "I haven't registered a complaint on WhatsApp, but on Twitter, a few days back. The gutter at Khairani Road in Kurla was full of garbage. The L Ward office removed it, but couldn't provide any proof that desilting had been carried out in the area before, or that it was only floating material," he said, adding that the BMC should install a board at the location with an image and information on how and when they cleaned the nullah. "It will not cost much and give transparency."

A gutter near Khairani Road, Kurla

Activist Godfrey Pimenta said that desilting work hasn't been carried out on several stretches of the Mithi River. "The BMC has only carried out desilting at locations where people can see the work being done but ignored the slum pockets. How can the water flow if the river is choked along stretches in the middle? Whenever I complain, the BMC acts immediately. But why wait for a complaint?"

Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam alleged that several nullahs are still not cleaned up. After visiting nullahs on Saturday, he has written a letter to the chief minister in this regard. The Storm Water Drains (SWD) department of the BMC claims to have removed 11.70 lakh tonnes of silt from nullahs and rivers across the city, which is 19 per cent more than the targeted quantity. Earlier, the civic body would remove around 9.80 lakh tonnes of garbage/waste/silt by the May 31 deadline.

The WhatsApp service started on June 1 received 278 complaints within a week. According to the SWD, only 102 complaints were related to major nullahs which come under the department. Of these, 50 per cent of the complaints were from the eastern suburbs. "Of the 102 complaints, 89 were closed after resolving the issue, whereas work on 13 complaints was underway (as on June 7)," said a civic official. The BMC didn't provide updated data on the status of the complaints.

278
No of complaints received by WhatsApp chatbot in the first week