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WHY IT'S NEVER A beach Sunday With sewers opening into rainwater drains, sand and coastal waters are contaminated; there are also heaps of garbage all over KAVITHA IYER O n Khar Danda beach, a once immaculate stretch of sand alongside a fishing village right in the heart of the city, the only visitors are ragpickers and men who use the crannies behind docked fishermen's boats as open air toilets. For the former, there is a sea of plastic and other articles-old slippers, cans, small bottles and rags. For the latter, there is privacy. After all, nobody visits. By the end of next year, the Mahim skyline will be dominated by the city's first cable-stayed bridge-eight planes of steel cables, 264 in all, reaching up 125 metres to the central tower of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. To enjoy the best view or get the best photographs with this engineering marvel in the background, tourists must walk through the muck that is Mahim Retibunder or Shivaji Park beach. SOCCER mums and multiplex dads, pub every-week teens and shopaholic families-ask anybody to play beach bum in Mumbai. It's no surprise that in a city with global fantasies, there are no takers for the sludge at Mahim beach or the makeshift toilets of Khar. Malls are expensive, but beaches are no fun. "A desperate need," says activist for open spaces Nayana Kathpalia of Citispace, when asked if planning for the city's sandy stretches should be a priority. "Because, it's an uphill task for citizens- and it's always citizens who've intervened to clean up patches, like they did in Juhu." She calls Dadar beach "the real tragedy", a place she remembers visiting as a youngster, now "disappeared". Point out the stench emanating from the storm water drain openings on beaches like Shivaji Park, and civic officials are quick to blame an archaic system-all through the city, slums not serviced by sewers empty their toilet waste into drains meant for rain water. The result: A lethal blend of toxins contaminating the sand and coastal waters. The Mumbai Sewage Disposal Project (MSDP) Stage II, okayed in 2006 for assis tance under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, seeks to extend the coverage of sewers to over 95 per cent of Mumbai. "That will make the beaches safer and cleaner," says a senior civic official. The MSDP will also treat more sewage before disposal. Currently, of the 2,380 mil lion litres a day (mld) of sewage that Maharashtra dis poses untreated, 1,100 mld comes from Mumbai alone. "But to build 58 km of new sewers and augment 106 km of ageing sewer lines takes time." What he means is that immediate, equally robust solutions are still awaited. For its part, the BMC is spending crores every year on beach-combing machines for Girgaum Chowpatty, Juhu, Shivaji Park and Versova. Additional Municipal Commissioner R A Rajeev has detailed plans to extend this service to all beaches. Problem is, mere clean-up schemes won't suffice. At Khar Danda, for example, there is a systematic ragpicking and recycling industry on the fringes of the beach, added to the crisis of garbage collection from the gaothan areas, something even Rajeev is aware of. Currently, only heaps outside gaothans are collected by civic vans, door-to-door collection is missing or inadequate. "We will be dealing with that problem urgently," he assures. "We will strengthen the Dattak Vasti Yojana and the Hyderabad pattern groups." But sewage and garbage are only the symptoms-at the root of the widescale abuse of Mumbai's sandy stretches is the absence of a plan for beach management. In 2003, remote sensing showed just 3.5 sq km of sandy areas. That's barely 0.74 per cent of the city's land occupied by beaches, and yet planning agencies are hard-pressed to chalk out a strategy to keep this land clear of encroachments and inviting for residents. WRITE IN: Share your beach stories at mumbai.newsline@expressindia.com TO M O R R O W:Slums on beaches, the toughest dilemma URL : http://70.86.150.130/indianexpress/ArticleText.aspx?article=22_04_2007_521_003 |
| Also see : Environment, Environment : News Articles |
