Dumping grounds top of city's North East candidate's agenda

Anil Hebbar Koni has in the past too been part of several fights for the rights of poor and underprivileged

Environmentalist Anil Hebbar Koni, who works with Medha Patkar's team has now filed his nomination as an independent candidate from the Mumbai North East constituency. "I have come up with a model which advocates independent waste handling in each ward in the city," Koni said.

An advocate of decentralization of waste management in Mumbai, Koni said that his priority is to set up a waste management plan for the garbage mountains at Deonar and Kanjur Marg that cause diseases in the constituency.

Anil Hebbar Koni

As a 24-year-old, Koni had resigned from his job and joined social reformer Baba Amte in the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan. He cycled 5,800 km from Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh to Okha in Gujarat, across the states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Sikkim, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. He has been actively working on issues concerning Mumbai and the country for the last 25 years.

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He has been closely associated with activist Medha Patkar and has supported her Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan fighting for housing rights of the poor in Mumbai and for the rehabilitation of people resettled in Mahul where the pollution is at unimaginable levels. He was Patkar's campaign manager in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Mumbai North East and has actively supported her in many agitations like in Mandala (Mankhurd, Mumbai), where thousands of people were thrown out of their houses overnight, and in Century Yarn and Denim Mills (Madhya Pradesh), where 1,000 workers lost employment due to the lockout of mills by the Birla management.

Also Read: Mumbai: Here's why Ambernath villagers holding up city's dumping ground project

'Inclusive approach needed'

"By profession, I am an engineer specialised in training of doctors using simulation technology. What I am fighting for is not burning waste and instead composting wet waste, recycling dry waste at source and only dumping a small part," he told mid-day. Speaking of the Deonar dumping ground, Koni said, "The huge mountain of waste here must be removed by using it for power generation.

It poses a great risk to public health otherwise. The garbage mountain has turned the constituency into a hell hole with the highest incidences of TB, cancer, lung diseases, and infant mortality. I strongly believe that an environmentally sustainable and inclusive approach is the only way forward to redress this problem," he said.

Also Read: Bombay HC allows dumping of solid waste at Deonar ground till December 31

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