Mumbai: Cover nullahs across the city, citizens tell the BMC

Storm water drainage work at Chamdawadi nullah in Bandra. File pic

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which has been trying to cover the tops of nullahs across the city for the past two years has barely managed to cover around 500 meters of nullahs yet, leaving most storm water drains open. Many corporators and citizens had raised concern about debris and garbage being dumped in the nullahs across the city.

The civic body will soon table a policy regarding covering nullahs in the city. There are around 260-km long major nullahs and 465-km long minor nullahs in total.

The Standing Committee has deferred the proposal to cover two nullahs at Andheri with polycarbonate covers. The proposal was to cover 48 metres of Krishnanagar nullah near Raunak society in Andheri East and the stretch of Abhishek nullah from Juhu Versova Link Road to N Datta Road with polycarbonate sheets. It stated that the semi-circular covers would have openings at a distance of every 10 metres so that there is no hindrance to cleaning.

Prabhakar Shinde, BJP corporator and Standing Committee member, said, "The administration should bring in a new policy to cover all the nullahs and not just some portions of it. There should be a clear mandate over this. Garbage dumping is rampant in some places and citizens have to bear the brunt with flooding." He further demanded in a meeting on Wednesday that this proposal should be brought in along with the policy to cover storm water drains in the city. Additional municipal commissioner P Velrasu, who was present in the meeting, has agreed to table the policy.

The pilot project of covering nullahs was first announced in the civic budget of 2017-18. The idea was to prevent people from tossing garbage into these drains. In 2018, the civic body covered 110 metres of nullahs in the Pancholia and Asha Nagar areas of Kandivli through a private firm. In March 2019, the civic administration added covers on 390 metres of nullahs.

"Covers cannot be placed over every nullah; drains where a machine is required to pull out garbage, those with dilapidated sidewalls and others that are too wide near the creek can't get covers. Further the drains that are proposed for widening too cannot be covered and such points are considered in the policy," a civic official said.

260Km
Total length of all major nullahs across city

390m
Length of nullahs BMC covered in March 2019

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