Mumbai: Environment reports an exercise in futility?

MUMBAI: The city’s environmental deterioration does not seem to be making any difference to the civic administration or its elected representatives. Little or no follow up action has ever been initiated on the annual environmental status report that civic staff bring out every year.

The report, an index of the city’s water, air and noise standards, is circulated every year to all corporators and senior officials under the BMC Act, but its findings have never been debated in the civic general body.

Sources said the report is treated merely as an annual exercise in civic corridors and no policy decisions are taken to improve falling standards. “The report is ignored to a great extent. The civic body has done its duty to the environment only to the extent of curbing the use of thin plastic,” said a former corporator.

Bhalchandra Shirsat, former BJP corporator and improvement committee chairman says during his decade-long tenure in the BMC, there never was any debate in the general body over the report’s findings. “Treating the sewerage effluents before disposing of them in the sea is at most what the civic body does as environmental responsibility,” said Shirsat.

The civic body’s environment department is redundant, with senior posts like the chief engineer (environment) and deputy municipal commissioner (environment) either vacant or given as additional charge to others, affecting the efficiency of the department.

Officials say one reason why the BMC could have woken up to alarming water contamination levels highlighted by the same report in the past is because the supply of clean drinking water is its primary mandate. “Senior officials often label the report’s findings as ‘misguiding’ rather than taking cognizance and adopting constructive measures,” said a civic official who is in-charge of conducting the tests and making the report.