mid-day impact: Hours after this newspaper hit the stands with its report on tiles and trees being dumped on Relief Road, the BMC and Mumbai police nab the culprits in a joint operation
Cops swing into action against the illegal dumping of debris on Relief Road in Santacruz on Tuesday. Pics/Shailesh Bhatia
Barely hours after mid-day broke the story of how an alert citizen captured illegal dumpers offloading piles of rubble, collected from a construction site, on Relief Road in Santacruz West, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the police have swung into action and booked the accused.
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In a three-hour operation last morning, officials not only penalised more than 20 truck drivers, but also removed nearly 20 tons of garbage, including broken floor tiles, parts of a commode and hacked bits of coconut trees, from the site.
It was Dr Salim Deshmukh, dentist and personal health trainer, who had spotted a dumper on the far end towards SNDT College, emptying a truckload of rubbish on the footpath, after several residents had kept vigil at all hours, fed up with the menace. Dr Deshmukh had then managed to click photos of number plates of three trucks and immediately shared them with the authorities.
Councillor oversees clean-up
Local municipal councillor Hetal Gala, who personally supervised the clean-up operation, said authorities have taken a serious note of the illegal dumping, and stringent fines have been imposed on the offenders.
Policemen take action against errant truck owners
"With the help of our BMC marshals and the police, we will now ensure that such illegal activities are curbed, and stricter action is taken against habitual offenders," she added.
Shyam Yevle from the local resident body, who was present on site, said he was pleasantly surprised to see authorities crack down on this "at such short notice and derive positive results".
A clamp fixed to the tyre of a truck to ensure it can't be moved
Police action
Inspector Jivan Kharat, who heads the traffic division of the locality, said FIRs have been filed against the errant truck owners and clamps were fixed on tyres of other parked trucks, whose owners could not be traced, to keep the vehicles on the spot.
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