The standing committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on Wednesday sought stringent supervision of desilting contractors. Members demanded that desilting operations be videographed and locations where the desilted waste was dumped be verified.
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The contractors have been asked to dump the waste outside Mumbai after taking necessary no-objection certificates and environmental clearance from local villagers and authorities. However, despite a major scam unearthed last year where contractors were found to have submitted fake NOC’s, and manipulated figures of silt collected, BJP corporators in the standing committee objected to high figures quoted by the contractors. These were almost 14% higher than the BMC’s own cost estimates.
Asif Zakaria (Congress) felt it was unfair that Mumbai’s waste was being dumped on villages and said the city should accept its moral responsibility. Yashwant Jadhav (Shiv Sena) stressed that his party was keen to act against the corrupt but felt that cancelling proposals could stop desilting work of major drains leading to flooding in the monsoon season.