The fish wastewater menace has again come to haunt the city residents as well as users of roads and highways with the beginning of the fishing season coupled with the near end of the Southwest Monsoon rains.
Trucks and mini goods vehicles that transport fish primarily from the Mangaluru Old Port (Bunder) spill the wastewater right from Bunder all along the trunk roads of the City and further on the National Highways. The impunity and lack of enforcement are visible where fish transporting trucks fitted with twin wastewater tanks that had almost stopped spilling wastewater during the last couple of years.
Social activist Nemu Kottari from Jeppu in the City, who was a regular at the weekly phone-in programmes of the city police commissioners conducted till December 2019, and some other residents were able to convince Mangaluru police to curb the wastewater menace to a considerable extent. He recalled the then Commissioner T.R. Suresh warning seizure of fish transporting vehicles if they were found spilling wastewater and said traffic police were able to contain the menace to a large extent.
Fish transporters use mainly three exists from the Bunder—Kulur Ferry Road towards Udupi, Mangaladevi Road and Jeppu towards Kerala and Mercara Trunk Road towards B.C. Road and beyond. All the arterial roads within the city and National Highways 66, 75 and 169 are dotted with wastewater spillage throughout.
Manjunath Nayak, a resident of Kudroli, said besides filling the surrounding with foul smell, the wastewater on the road is highly dangerous for two-wheeler riders as well as other road users. Due to the slippery nature of the wastewater, many two-wheelers skid on the road, he said.
Mr. Kottari said local bodies, including city corporations and municipalities, are bound to provide wastewater dumping areas for fish transporters as per relevant Acts governing their functioning. None of them have provided the same thereby forcing transporters to create nuisance en-route, he regretted.
Added to the wastewater menace, transporting of decayed fish to fish-meal factories too has been causing foul smell across the City, Mr. Kottari added.
City Police Commissioner N. Shashi Kumar said he would look into the issue.
