Mumbai: Bombay high court directed the state govt to file an affidavit by Wednesday to outline short-term mitigating measures to tackle pollution at the Kanjurmarg dumping ground and to take the support of IIT-Bombay in fine-tuning the action plan.A bench headed by Justice Girish Kulkarni was hearing petitions that highlighted grievances of residents in the area adjoining the dumping ground.
Justice Kulkarni said, “It pains our hearts to see the impact of pollution on the lives of innocent residents. It is not an issue that we take lightly,” he said, and sought urgent mitigating steps, warning that HC would otherwise have to, as a “last resort,” appoint a contractor to oversee the actions. Additional govt pleader Jyoti Chavan said the state was taking the support of IIT-Bombay, and HC said it should as it doesn’t want the steps to remain on paper. “It appears that there is a genuine concern regarding odour and gases being emitted… There also appears to be uncertainty on the measures being taken by the contractor to scientifically, efficiently and effectively remedy the problems which have been repeatedly raised over several years,” HC said.On a claim that residents’ complaints are not addressed, it said such grievances “cannot be dealt with casually or… get entangled in red tape”. “In our opinion, the dumping site needs to have a 24×7 grievance redressal mechanism by providing minimum four telephone numbers as also two email IDs,” it said, adding that an effective response should be ensured within an hour of a complaint. Last week, after hearing advocate Abhijeet Rane for residents and Zaman Ali for NGO Vanshakti, as well as Saket Mone for a plant meant to manage the waste, HC had directed a special committee set up by the state to visit the site and look into the grievances of the residents. The committee conducted a site visit and met to discuss the issue. HC said it should now come up with practical solutions.The committee was tasked with preparing a robust blueprint on urgent measures to prevent pollution being generated from the dumping ground. —Swati Deshpande
