Navale Bridge-Katraj tunnel stretch turns into garbage dump

Despite the appointment of a vigilance team and flying squads, citizens continue to dump garbage along highways on the city’s outskirts

Despite the appointment of a vigilance team and flying squads, citizens continue to dump garbage along highways on the city’s outskirts. Onlookers discovered large amounts of trash piled up near the Navale Bridge on the Mumbai-Pune highway.

Garbage lying opposite Swaminarayan temple on Mumbai - Bengaluru highway. (Ravindra Joshi/HT PHOTO)

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the National Highways Authorities of India (NHAI) recently joined forces to clean up the garbage along all highways. As NHAI did not have a mechanism, Pune district collector Rajesh Deshmukh requested PMC to lift the garbage along highways.

PMC and NHAI formed flying squad teams to fine perpetrators, who are throwing garbage along the highways. Many new societies have emerged along highways, and because they lack garbage collection facilities, they throw garbage along the road.

Garbage had also been dumped in the Katraj ghat section.

On the critical issue, a PMC official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, stated, “It is the responsibility of the NHAI to maintain vigilance and take action against citizens who engage in egregious behaviour such as dumping garbage on the streets. Because the majority of the highway stretches are not under PMC jurisdiction, we are unable to take direct action. We helped clean the highways last time because the city entrances were filthy. There should be a long-term mechanism in place to prevent the garbage from being dumped along roads.”