Plan to secure Deonar dump fails

he Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s enthusiastic schemes to secure the Deonar dumpyard after at least five large fires broke out amid 12 million metric tonnes of garbage have failed to materialise, even seven months after they were hatched.

The BMC’s single largest security concern — securing the dumping ground from unauthorised rag pickers — remains unaddressed, as several people from the nearby slums continue to enter the dump everyday, pick waste and sneak out unnoticed.

Following such complaints, the solid waste management department has served an internal memo to two junior officers of the department, asking them to state what measures are being taken to keep rag pickers out of the dumping ground. The officers have also been asked to produce a status report of the beat chowkies housed around the dumping ground, where junior SWM officers were supposed to shift there offices three months ago.

Deputy municipal commissioner of the SWM department Vijay Balamwar said, “I had directed all junior officers to shift their offices to the beat chowky outside the main gate of the dumping ground. I have now sent a memo asking them why they have not shifted, as rag pickers continue to enter the dumping ground.”

Meanwhile, the SWM official who is the addressee of the memo said, “Even though I do not sit there, there is a junior engineer and an assistant engineer at the BMC office at the dumping ground. We agree that unauthorised rag pickers enter the ground, but we shoo them away whenever we can.”

The BMC had planned to issue I-cards for rag pickers with radio frequency tagging, which would help the civic body track their movement. While the BMC conducted police verification camps of about 800 rag pickers and took down their biometric details, the project did not conclude. Following this, rag pickers were banned from the entering the ground.

Meanwhile, the BMC had decided to set up night vision-enabled CCTV cameras in the dumping ground, but the project still remains incomplete. Similarly, its plan to set up watchtowers along the boundary has not taken off. Some moves bear fruit, some are laid to waste Completed project Constructing a boundary wall Setting up vents to let out methane

Incomplete project Installing CCTV cameras Issuing radio frequency tagged I-cards (RFID card) Slope stabilisation Covering the garbage mounds with debris