‘Nariman Point offices dumping paper in sea’

People in buildings around Nariman Point have been dumping paper waste into the sea, Cuffe Parade residents have said.

In a complaint to the civic chief and the state environment department, BM Chaturvedi, senior vice president of the Cuffe Parade Residents Association identified local offices that discard used paper in the sea.

He included photographs that he took from a window in his house to show the waste floating close to the shore.

The complaint comes on a day a nationwide cleanliness survey by the urban development ministry ranked Mumbai 29 in a survey of cleanest cities in India.

The financial capital slipped out of the Top 10 list and is struggling to deal with its waste, while next door neighbour Navi Mumbai was ranked among the cleanest in the country.

“Every morning, we wake up to pieces of paper floating near the shoreline ” Chatur

(in pic)

“Educated people from offices in south Mumbai have been dumping their stationery over the past three months,” Chaturvedi said.

“It is not about pointing fingers at anyone, but about understanding basic civic sense. We are destroying whatever little tourism Mumbai can attract.”

Officials from the solid waste management (SWM) department however have denied taking place.

“Our dumpers collect paper waste separately from the buildings every day. It is segregated and sent to the dumping grounds,” said CP Kulkarni, assistant engineer (environment), SWM A ward. “We will ask our officers to visit the shoreline to check and remove any dumped waste.”

The residents’ complaint comes just months after a study board showed the city’s most expensive real estate areas were surrounded by high levels of water pollution.

Similar to the air quality index, a water quality index (WQI) measured pollution on the surface of the sea at Malabar Hill, Nariman Point, Gateway of India, Worli seaface, Juhu and the Bandra end of Mithi River. The study showed high pollution owing to a surge in domes