Garbage thrown by the Arabian Sea onto the Marine Drive promenade after a high tide (file photo) | Photo Credit: BCCL

Mumbai: A bench of the Bombay High Court on Monday asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to come up with a solution to deal with the tonnes of garbage being thrown along Marine Drive as a result of high tides. The Maharashtra government was also told by the division bench of Justices AS Oka and Riyaz Chagla to treat the issue as a serious one.

The matter came to light following a PIL by city-based NGO 'Citizens Circle for Social Welfare and Education' regarding the disposal of sewage and its untreated discharge into the sea. Lawyer Shehzad Naqvi, appearing for the petitioner told the bench that 9,000 tonnes of garbage were dumped by the Arabian Sea along the stretch of the Marine Drive promenade earlier this month.

#Mumbai: Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) workers clean the promenade of Marine Drive as high tide spills garbage pic.twitter.com/P5dRnNK0OV — ANI (@ANI) July 15, 2018

Taking cognizance of his argument, the court asked the state government and the BMC to "do something" about the tonnes of untreated garbage. It also quoted a report by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) which in October of last year had blamed the civic body for unloading thousands of tonnes of untreated garbage into the Arabian Sea. As much as 655 million litres of sewage is being discharged directly into the sea every single day, said Justice Oka while citing the report.

While asserting that this is causing severe pollution in the city of Mumbai, the High Court has instructed BMC, the state government along with the state's environment department to file an affidavit underlining the steps taken by them to deal with the matter on August 10. According to the MPCB report, Mumbai generates almost 2,671 million litres of sewage each day, out of which 2,016 million litres is treated at eight sewage treatment plants (STPs). The remaining 655 million litres is then dumped untreated into the Arabian Sea.

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