Mumbai: Abu Azmi, a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly representing the Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar Constituency in M/E Ward, said on Saturday that he will personally march to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) biomedical waste management plant in Govandi on Monday, August 8, to forcibly shut down its operations and lock up the facility.
Azmi also demanded that the city’s biomedical refuse be taken to an alternative facility in Taloja.
Azmi said he is prepared to take such a step, despite possible adverse consequences, to protect the health of his constituents who have been living with toxic emissions from the biomedical waste plant since 2009, resulting in a range of medical problems from tuberculosis to asthma and various eye and skin ailments, among others. The state environment department had earlier instructed the plant to be shifted to Khalapur in Raigad district by February 2022, however, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has said that it will not be possible to do so before June 2023.
“I have visited the proposed site of the alternate facility and absolutely no work has been started on it. The Tata Institute of Social Sciences has found that SMS Envoclean’s waste incinerator is a major cause of poor public health in the area, where the population’s life expectancy is just 39 years. The majority of people who live in Shivaji Nagar are Muslim, Dalit and OBC. By not treating this matter with utmost urgency, the state government is sending a strong message to these people about how much their lives are valued,” Azmi said.
Residents, meanwhile, say they are running out of patience and will soon start staging regular demonstrations against the BMC and MPCB. “We are at our wit’s end. The state environment department had clearly instructed the plant to be shifted to Khalapur by February 2022. This was then pushed to May 2022. Now, however, we are finding out that because the plant has not yet received environmental clearance from the state expert appraisal committee, we have to live amid the pollution for at least one more year. This constant delay does not inspire any faith in the local authorities,” said Shaikh Fayaz Alam, president of the Govandi New Sangam Welfare Society, a body which represents residents from Govandi, Deonar and Mankhurd who live within the incinerator’s zone of influence.
{{/usCountry}}Residents, meanwhile, say they are running out of patience and will soon start staging regular demonstrations against the BMC and MPCB. “We are at our wit’s end. The state environment department had clearly instructed the plant to be shifted to Khalapur by February 2022. This was then pushed to May 2022. Now, however, we are finding out that because the plant has not yet received environmental clearance from the state expert appraisal committee, we have to live amid the pollution for at least one more year. This constant delay does not inspire any faith in the local authorities,” said Shaikh Fayaz Alam, president of the Govandi New Sangam Welfare Society, a body which represents residents from Govandi, Deonar and Mankhurd who live within the incinerator’s zone of influence.
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