The BMC receives 102 complaints about nullahs

Sanjay Nirupam has alleged many nullahs are yet to be cleaned, like this one at Goregaon which he inspected on Saturday

In the first week since launching WhatsApp Chatbot services to register grievances about nullah cleaning, the BMC received 102 complaints. But the Storm Water Drains (SWD) Department has mentioned in its report that not a single of these complaints is related to improper desilting of nullahs, but to garbage and floating materials in them. The SWD has written a letter to the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Department asking it to look into the garbage in nullahs, but the latter has refused to this citing nullahs are not under its purview.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) started the complaint redressal number after instructions from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The service started on June 1 and within a week there were 278 complaints. But the SWD said that only 102 complaints were related to major nullahs which come under the department. Out of it, 50 per cent complaints were from the eastern suburbs. At least 89 of the complaints were closed after resolving the issue, while work on resolving 13 is going on, said a BMC official.

The SWD mentioned in its report that the majority of complaints received are regarding floating materials and garbage in the nullahs. The SWM department was asked to deploy ward wise agencies to address such complaints. But officials of the SWM which comes under another additional commissioner, refused to intervene. "We are accountable for collecting garbage from residential, commercial premises and to sweep the roads. Nullahs do not come under our department. Besides, the contract of nullah desilting included removal of silt as well as flowing material, and the SWD is responsible to maintain the flow of water. We don't have any agency expertise in cleaning water bodies and have communicated this to the SWD," said an official from the SWM.

The BMC removed 11.52 lakh tonnes silt from nullahs and rivers across the city which is 17 per cent more than the targeted quantity. The BMC used to remove around 9.80 lakh tonnes garbage/waste/silt from the city's nullahs and rivers before every monsoon till May 31. This year, the process of cleaning started early and the target was achieved a week before.

However, the CM has asked BMC to clean the nullahs upto the bottom, but the civic body hasn't taken a call on it. "The actual silt in the nullahs may be threefold more than the targetted quantity. But no one has an exact idea and the decision of extending current contracts or appointment of new contractors will be taken at the senior level," said an official from the SWD. Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam has alleged that several nullahs have still not been cleaned. After visiting nullahs on Saturday he wrote a letter to the CM saying the drains have not been completely cleaned in Mumbai. He claimed there is a big scam in drain cleaning in Mumbai.

11.52L
Silt in tonnes removed from city's nullahs and rivers