‘We turned footpaths into pav bhaji stalls’: Bombay HC says Mumbai’s flooding ‘our personal creation’, cannot blame BMC
The Bombay Excessive Court docket on Tuesday noticed that Mumbai’s recurring monsoon waterlogging can’t be blamed solely on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Company (BMC), saying that encroachments, blocked drains and misuse of public infrastructure have considerably contributed to town’s flooding issues.
Listening to a matter associated to street widening in Mandala village on the Sion-Trombay stretch, a bench of Appearing Chief Justice Ravindra V Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad remarked that most of the points resulting in waterlogging stem from public actions reasonably than civic authorities alone.
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“We’re destined to see rainwater on roads. We can not assist it. We’ve got an uncanny knack for grabbing lands. We block the gutters. One small spell of rain blocks the roads. It’s our personal creation,” Appearing Chief Justice Ghuge mentioned, reported Bar and Bench.
The court docket additionally pointed to the misuse of public areas. “Company gave us footpaths, we began having pav bhaji stalls on them. Our behavior is to rob our personal motherland,” the decide mentioned.
Court docket seeks DAE’s response on street widening
The observations got here whereas the court docket was listening to the BMC’s plea searching for land from the Division of Atomic Power (DAE) to widen a street in Mandala village from 30 toes to 50 toes, the Indian Specific reported.
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The bench issued a discover to the DAE after the civic physique knowledgeable the court docket that it had already eliminated encroachments from the land beneath its management and that the remaining land required for the mission belonged to the division.
BMC says widening relies on DAE land
Showing for the BMC, Senior Advocate Milind Sathe instructed the court docket that the civic physique had cleared encroachments alongside the prevailing 30-foot-wide street, a course of that additionally concerned felling almost 192 timber, the Indian Specific reported.
Nevertheless, he mentioned the extra land wanted to increase the street to 50 toes falls beneath the management of the DAE, which oversees the close by Bhabha Atomic Analysis Centre (BARC).
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Sathe submitted that the civic physique was able to widen the street if the required land was made accessible.
After listening to the submissions, the Excessive Court docket noticed that the Division of Atomic Power must determine whether or not it was keen to supply the extra land required for the street growth.
