Mumbai: Days after the Bombay High Court warned that it would order the closure of the Kanjurmarg dumping ground over the state’s failure to curb pollution and hazardous methane emissions at the site, deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday ordered officials to shift activities generating foul odour at least 500 meters away from residential areas.
“Residents should not suffer due to foul odour. All high court guidelines must be followed strictly. Bamboo plantation should be undertaken on a large scale to develop a thick green forest, which will help in controlling the spread of foul odour,” Shinde, who also holds charge of the urban development department, told officials during a meeting at the Mantralaya.
Chief secretary Rajesh Aggarwal, additional chief secretary of the urban development department Aseem Kumar Gupta Dr Govindraj and other officials were present at the meeting.
On April 24, while hearing a clutch of petitions filed by residents of the Kannamwar Cooperative Housing Society in Vikhroli, the nonprofit Vanashakti and others, a bench of justices Girish S Kulkarni and Aarti A Sathe had warned that it would order the closure of the dumping ground if the state government and civic authorities did not act immediately and take concrete steps to curb pollution and methane emissions. Advocates representing the petitioners had told the court that pollution was not only affecting the Kannamwar Nagar area which was home to 150,000 people, but also the neighbouring areas of Vikhroli, Mulund and Bhandup.
During the subsequent hearing on April 28, the judges had directed the state government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to strictly monitor pollution levels at the site daily between 1am and 6am, and come up with a “mitigation mechanism” within two weeks.
In light of these developments, Shinde on Wednesday ordered that waste processing activities which generate foul odour must not be carried out near residential areas.
“Processing activities like composting that generate foul odour should be shifted to locations at least 500 metres away from residential zones, to ensure citizens are not affected and their health is protected,” Shinde told officials.
During the meeting, BMC additional commissioner Vipin Sharma said that the Kanjurmarg dumping ground processed around 6,200 tonnes of waste daily through landfill, composting, and segregation methods. So far, nearly 190 million metric tonne waste had been treated at the site, and various odour-control measures such as bio-enzyme spraying, soil layering, landfill gas management and misting were in place, Sharma told the deputy chief minister.
Shinde, however, emphasised that existing anti-odour measures must be implemented more effectively. The frequency of anti-odour spraying must be increased and pollution levels should be monitored more strictly, he said.
In terms of long-term solutions, Shinde ordered the BMC to expedite the waste-to-energy project. “All technical aspects should be examined and necessary steps must be taken to start the waste-to-energy project at the earliest,” he said.