Video Source: HindustanTimes
As reported by Hindustan Times the water supplied to homes in the western suburbs and certain areas of Mumbai may contain chemical residue, posing serious health risks. The source of the contamination is around 25km from the Vaitarna River in Nashik district, where daily more than six tonnes of waste from Igatpuri, a hill station around 130km northeast of Mumbai, is dumped by the town’s municipal council into a stream, which locals and experts said, joins the river near the Middle Vaitarna and Upper Vaitarna dams. Around 17 lakh homes in the city get water from these dams every day. What’s worse, is the water, which flows for 150km before reaching the city, is treated only once; that too at a 30-year-old treatment plant in Bhandup, which is not entirely equipped to rid the water of some of the chemicals. On a visit to the site, as witnessed by Hindustan Times reporter, waste was dumped into the stream from a four-acre illegal dump yard adjacent to it. A video captured by locals shows the municipal council emptying waste into the stream.
The Logical Indian appeals to the authority of BMC to not allow garbage to be dumped into the rivers. Dumping garbage into rivers is a shortcut that costs a lot to the environment. The BMC is Asia’s richest civic body in terms of annual spends but they have failed again and again when it comes to civic duties.
