The Bombay high court on Friday issued notices to the government of Maharashtra and other government departments seeking their response to the public interest litigation seeking introduction of the odd-even rule for private cars in Mumbai.
The division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice Revati Mohite-Dere on Friday issued notices to the Maharashtra government, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and Regional Transport Office (RTO) asking them to file their reply within two weeks.
While hearing the PIL, the bench also discussed the negative impact of environment changes and also gave an example of the recent floods in Chennai. “The situation in Chennai was due to unplanned constructions. Even in Mumbai there is so much construction on wetlands and Mumbai will also face a similar situation if nothing is done now,” said the bench.
It was also discussed how areas like Backbay have been encroached upon by slums and all this is happening because of lack of political will to control these things. Senior counsel Aspy Chinoy said that the population of slums in Mumbai is almost as much as the population of some European countries and the slums are increasing towards the seaside day-by-day. The court also raised concerns over the increasing pollution in the city and the rest of the country. The court was hearing PIL filed by Bandra resident Shadaab Patel, a social worker who has contended that the residents of the city are facing health problems due to air pollution caused by carbon monoxide emitted from vehicles and by burning and other ways of disposal of solid waste by the municipal corporation.
The PIL has sought a direction to the authorities to set up a committee to analyse air pollution and to implement remedies to reduce and control it. The petition has said that Mumbai, which has lesser number of vehicles than Delhi, tops in vehicular emission due to congested roads, lack of space to expand because of the coastline and rising number of diesel vehicles.
