Under fire, UMC to get dumping ground soon

URAN: The Uran Municipal Council (UMC), which is under attack for dumping municipal garbage in mangrove areas, has said that it’s getting a new dumping ground soon from. The process is in the final stage.

The greens say that dumping and spreading of garbage on mangroves has been going on unabated in Uran despite interventions from the Prime Minister down to the High Court-appointed Mangrove Protection and Conservation Committee, Chief Minister and Raigad District Guardian Minister, Aditi Tatkare, environmentalists and local citizens.

NatConnect Foundation director, BN Kumar, said, “None of the authorities here seem to respect mangroves as frontline soldiers against tidal attacks.”

NatConnect tweeted to all the powers that be a fresh video of the dumping and JCB machine spreading the garbage on mangroves.

The HC panel has asked the UMC and local planner CIDCO to find an alternative site and stop dumping on mangroves, Nandakumar Pawar, head of Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishtan, said. He recalled that an FIR had been filed against the civic body for violation under the Environment Act in January 2020.

Santosh Mali, chief executive officer of UMC, said, “The environmentalists are complaining but the land has been given to us by the collector. In 2006, Raigad Collector had given us land where we started dumping municipal waste. The area is close to the creek. Mangroves have grown amidst the garbage dumped but we have not touched or harmed them.”

He added that they have again gone to the Raigad Collector for an alternate five- hectare plot in Jasai for a dumping ground and our request has been granted. “The process is in the last stage. At present, on the Bori Pakhadi area dumping ground, we’ll conserve the mangroves grown there,” he said.