Deonar fire got just 9 queries in BMC

When Rome was burning, Nero was playing the fiddle! Even as the city struggled with pollution hazards triggered by the huge fire at the Deonar dumping ground, corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) were busy demanding that city roads and chowks be named or renamed.

This was revealed in NGO Praja Foundation’s report card of BMC corporators for the year 2015-16. Early this year, large parts of the city were affected owing to a fire that broke out at the 132-hectare Deonar dump site.

It caused several health hazards to local residents and people living in neighbouring areas, as the pollution had rendered the surrounding areas unfit for habitation. It also forced the BMC to shut down schools in nearby areas.

The Praja report states they only asked nine questions on the Deonar dumping in the two months following the fire. The questions asked about potholes, another major issue nagging Mumbaikars, were only 38 during 2015-16.

Compared to this, one out of every eight questions were on renaming of roads and chowks. In fact, in the list of top 25 issues raised by corporators, the naming and renaming of roads and chowks score high taking second spot with 374 questions.

According to the report, between April 2012 and March 2016, 25,067 people died of TB; dengue cases have risen by 213 per cent and there was a 61 per cent rise in dengue deaths. Even with stats like this, corporators asked only 39 questions on TB and 125 on dengue. “It shows the total disconnect of our corporators to what is happening in the city,” said Nitai Mehta, managing trustee, Praja Foundation. “In case of Deonar disaster, in the next two months right after the incident, corporators raised just nine questions.”

Another worry was the rising criminal graph of BMC corporators. As many as 53 corporators, which comes to 24 per cent, have criminal records. Of them, 28 corporators have new cases registered against them after 2012 elections.