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6,000 students block garbage vehicles near MIT ADT campus on Friday
In view of rising tensions between students and gram panchayats, heavy police deployment has been made outside the university campus
The agitation by students against the dumping of garbage in the Mula–Mutha river intensified on Friday as nearly 6,000 students from the MIT Art, Design and Technology (MIT ADT) University campus renewed their “Garbage Bandh” protest after the deadline given to local gram panchayats expired without any concrete action. Students blocked garbage-laden tractors outside the university’s main gate, preventing them from entering the campus and heading towards the riverbed where, according to protesters, large quantities of waste continue to be dumped daily.
The protest was launched on March 4 when students staged a demonstration and stopped waste vehicles heading towards the dumping site before it was temporarily suspended following mediation by deputy commissioner of police Rajkumar Shinde. The students had given gram panchayats a seven-day deadline to find an alternative arrangement for waste disposal.
However, as the dumping allegedly continued even after the deadline ended, students resumed the protest.
Student leader Dadasaheb Bhosure said, “Nearly 35 to 40 tractor-loads of waste are being dumped here every day, which amounts to around 70 tonnes of garbage.”
Another student, Mugdha Sonawane, said that the agitation resumed because the authorities failed to act within the deadline given by the students. “We are not against the gram panchayats, but the river cannot be used as a dumping site,” she said.
In view of rising tensions between students and gram panchayats, heavy police deployment has been made outside the university campus.
Meanwhile, a major fire had broken out in heaps of accumulated garbage in the riverbed on February 26. The blaze continued to smoulder for nearly four days, releasing smoke in the surrounding areas. As a result, six to seven students from the MIT campus reportedly suffered breathing difficulties and suffocation and had to be hospitalised.
Following the incident, officials, including Haveli subdivision officer Yashwant Mane, Loni Kalbhor additional tehsildar Trupti Kolte, along with former sarpanches and gram sevaks from villages, visited the dumping site and reviewed the situation.
Professor Mangesh Karad, executive president, MIT ADT University, said the institution has always cooperated with local authorities but expressed concern over the environmental and health hazards caused by the dumping. “The gram panchayats had earlier passed a resolution seeking two acres of grazing land for a scientific waste management project. Unfortunately, despite that resolution, dumping garbage in the riverbed has resumed. We urge the authorities to arrange an alternative site for scientific waste disposal,” he said.
