Mumbai: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had directed the Ulhasnagar municipal corporation to stop dumping untreated effluents into the Waldhuni river, which is the drinking water source of the entire Kalyan-Dombivli area, but no heed seems to have been paid to the warning.
Despite the Pune bench of the tribunal threatening to direct the urban development department secretary to take over the corporation if it did not clean up its act, a tanker discarded some chemicals into the river on Saturday, following which more than 350 residents were taken ill.
The tribunal’s warning came after NGO Vanashakti filed a petition to clean up the Ulhas, seeking criminal proceedings against the civic heads of Badlapur and Ulhasnagar for endangering human life and polluting the river. The Waldhuni flows into the Ulhas and then the water flows through the Ulhas creek into the sea.
In its affidavit, Vanashakti had pointed out that at Gauripada and Bandarpada, where the Waldhuni met the Ulhas, large tracts of agricultural land were being irrigated with water contaminated with toxic effluents. The affidavit claimed that industrial units in the Dombivli MIDC discharged untreated effluents into the stormwater drains and open spaces. Similar is the scene at NRC bund where where the Khemani drain, carrying untreated sewage from Ulhasnagar, empties into the drinking water pumping zone. “The stench of the chemicals here is so strong that it is almost impossible to stand. I am apprehensive about the poisoning of the food chain as a result of these actions and pray that the practice be immediately stopped and alternate water sources provided to farmers,” said D Stalin, director of Vanashakti, in the affidavit.
In the next hearing in August, the tribunal had also directed the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to shut all polluting industrial units along the Ulhas. “Units, which did not even have the MPCB consent to operate, obtained a stay order from the Bombay high court against the closing in August by concealing the NGT orders against them. A similar thing happened in units along the Mithi. The MPCB is the facilitator in all these cases as it keeps silent when matters come up in the high court,” Stalin said.
