Spell out steps to tackle sewage spewed by sea

Observing that the sudden spewing of 9,000 tonnes of sewage at Marine Drive earlier this month was ‘serious,’ the Bombay High Court on Monday rapped the Maharashtra government and also the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The HC has accordingly asked the authorities to spell out the steps they propose to undertake for dealing with the issue.

A division bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Riyaz Chagla was said,“This is a serious issue. We want to know from the authorities as to what is the solution to this issue. There is so much of garbage, debris and sewage discharged into the sea. The civic body will have to do something about this.”

The bench was seized with a plea filed by the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) – Citizens' Circle for Social Welfare and Education, seeking directions to the government and civic authorities to frame appropriate guidelines for disposing of debris and other waste. The NGO also sought framing of guidelines for discharging the waste generated by citizens into the sea.

Appearing for the NGO, advocate Shehzad Naqvi informed the bench that a huge amount of waste had been dumped on the Marine Drive promenade, last week.

“At least 9,000 tonnes of waste was dumped at Marine Lines promenade last week, after a high tide,” Naqvi submitted.

Naqvi also cited the affidavit filed by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) in October last year, which categorically said the BMC was discharging huge amounts of untreated sewage directly into the sea.

Having perused the affidavit of the MPCB, Justice Oka said, “As per the report, out of 2,671 million litres of sewage per day, 2,016 million litres is treated at eight sewage treatment plants by the BMC. The remaining 655 million litre of untreated sewage is discharged directly into the sea at different locations.”

“We think the recent incident at Marine Drive has shown that the discharge of such huge quantities of untreated sewage into the sea is creating pollution,” Justice Oka remarked.

The bench accordingly posted the matter for further hearing on August 10, directed the officials of the BMC and the environment department of the government to file detailed affidavits, on their action plans to tackle this issue.