Encroachment stalls work at Worli sewage plant
The civic body’s inability to stop the mushrooming of slums is hindering its own projects.
The sewerage operations department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) wants to set up a sewage treatment plant in Worli. Budget allocations have been made; all that is stopping the project are more than 3,500 huts that have encroached more than six of the 10 hectare required for the project.
Civic officials, along with Additional Municipal Commissioner Anil Diggikar, visited the site at Jijamata Nagar and tried to convince the residents to vacate the land in exchange of homes under the slum rehabilitation scheme.
The plant is supposed be set up under the Mumbai Sewage Disposal Project-II executed by the BMC which is funded under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
These plants have to be set up as its been made mandatory by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to treat sewage water before letting it in sea.
Six more such plants will be set up across the city.
“We need 5.5 hectare to set up the plant, but there are five societies which have encroached and are not ready to move out,” said a civic official.
The plant will treat 490 million litres of sewage water daily which can be used for non–potable purposes.
“We have now asked the state government and the Slum Rehabilitation Authority to negotiate with them (the residents),” said Diggikar.
