Mumbai: After Aaditya Thackeray’s allegations, BJP rubbishes BMC’s nullah cleaning claims

BJP MLA Ashish Shelar at a nullah in Bandra West on Friday.

In the wake of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray's corruption allegations against the BMC with regard to road-related work, the BJP has stated that the civic body's cleaning of nullahs is not up to the mark. It also claimed that only 30 per cent of desilting work has been completed as opposed to the 79 per cent claimed by the administration.

According to the BMC, as of May 12, almost 80 per cent of nullah sanitisation work, including cleaning the Mithi river as well as roadside gutters, has been finished. A few BJP MLAs, including Ashish Shelar and Amit Satam, and former corporators Prabhakar Shinde and Bhalachandra Shirsat took a look at drains in the western suburbs on Friday in the presence of civic officials.

Shelar, who represents Bandra West in the Assembly, said, "The figures about drains being cleaned have nothing to do with reality and barely 25 to 30 per cent of the work is complete." The BJP team visited South Avenue Nagar, the Gazdar Bandh nullah, Pawan Hans nullah and SNDT nullah. They also visited the Gadzar Bandh pumping station, Irla nullah near Millennium Club, Mogra nullah and Meghwadi nullah.

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Shelar alleged that Rahul Nagar nullah hasn't been cleaned as yet whereas the nullah cleaning at Gazdar Bandh was started on Friday. "Also, piles of silt have accumulated in front of the Gazdar Bandh pumping station. I believe that the work of cleaning the drain at SNDT only commenced recently," he said.

"It is clear that BMC relies entirely on what the contractors tell them. There is utter negligence. The contractors appointed for works to the tune of over R280 crore are manipulating the figures. Even if there is an administrator in the BMC, the BJP will make sure that whoever is behind this kind of unsatisfactory and negligent work will be held responsible," said Shelar.

There are 309 major drains, 508 small nullahs stretching across 605 km and four rivers with an approximate length of 290 km. This year, a target was set to remove a total of 9,82,426 tonnes of silt before the monsoon. The target was determined by taking into account the rainfall intensity in Mumbai.

The BMC issued a clarification in response to Shelar's allegations. It read, "Pre-monsoon desilting works are going on properly and all statistics, information, photographs and videos are available on https://swd.mcgm.gov.in/WMS2023. The tender process for these works has also been conducted in a transparent manner."

It further stated, "Desilting is being carried out according to a meticulous schedule and drains are being cleaned in a step-by-step manner. While some drains have already been desilted, work is currently underway at certain locations. Therefore, the presence of silt in a particular drain does not imply that work has not been carried out there." The BMC also stated that the officials who were present during the visit satisfactorily addressed points raised by Shelar.