After defeating one BMC project, Govandi residents brace for another battle
The suburb is already notorious for having the poorest air quality in the city thanks to the dumping ground, a Ready Mix Concrete plant and cement and chemical factories. The waste-to-energy plant, which will treat around 600 metric tonnes of garbage every day, is the last straw for distressed residents
MUMBAI: Residents of Govandi, subjected to toxic fumes from a biomedical waste treatment plant since 2009, won a long battle in September when the Bombay high court directed the BMC to shift the plant to Patalganga in Borivali within two years. But just when the jubilant residents thought they could now breathe easy came a shocker: they discovered that an equally poisonous waste-to-energy plant was scheduled to be operational shortly at the Deonar dumping ground.
The suburb is already notorious for having the poorest air quality in the city thanks to the dumping ground, a Ready Mix Concrete plant and cement and chemical factories. The waste-to-energy plant, which will treat around 600 metric tonnes of garbage every day, is the last straw for distressed residents.
“Govandi has become a testing hub and we are the guineapigs,” said Faiyyaz Alam Shaikh, president of the Govandi New Welfare society and the petitioner who filed the court case against the biomedical waste treatment plant. “Whenever the authorities want to launch a new project, which could cause harm to citizens, its pilot testing is done here. We have had the Deonar dumping ground since 2017 and the biomedical waste incinerator since 2009. Then there are all these factories and the animal incinerator at the Deonar slaughterhouse.”
Shaikh complained that all the positive and beneficial projects launched by the BMC were for the elite in the island city. “The authorities are treating us like second-class citizens,” he said. “Aren’t we taxpayers and don’t we have the fundamental right to live with fresh air?”
With the poison prevalent in the environment, Deonar has thousands of tuberculosis, asthma and cancer cases. According to a TISS report of a few years ago, the average life expectancy of M East ward is a shocking 39 years as against the 70-plus years of the rest of the state.
Salim Sheikh, who lives at Baiganwadi, lost his 24-year-old brother Shahid Sheikh on November 27 after a long battle with respiratory issues. “He had a heart problem and respiratory issues for many years,” he said. “He had open heart surgery too in the past. He was admitted to Nair Hospital last Saturday, as he had started coughing up blood.”
Sheikh, a leather factory worker, said that the construction of a new road had added to the already suffocating pollution. “The most affected by the toxicity are senior citizens and children,” he said. “We are poor daily wagers, who don’t have the luxury of going out to protest. We will have to go without food if we don’t work for one day.”
According to the 2011 census, the Deonar-Govandi area had a population of 9 lakhs, now increased to around 12 lakhs, comprising mainly lower-income groups like daily wage earners or rickshaw drivers. The slum cluster around the dumping ground stands cheek by jowl with small factories and buildings of three to four storeys.
Karim Khan (30), a resident of Gautam Nagar in Govandi, lives with his eight-member family in a three-bedroom house on the 22nd floor of a building called Rayan Park. Khan wakes up every day to a smoky haze outside his window, which scares him.
“Our chawl was earlier called Gautam Nagar and it is now a high-rise,” he said. “My bedroom window faces the biomedical waste treatment plant and when I wake up in the morning, the visibility outside my window is zero. At night, the smoke reaches the 22nd floor. My building is 800 metres away from the biomedical waste treatment plant, and whenever I open the windows there’s just smog and smoke all around. I keep the windows shut all the time.”
Khan said that the adults were immune to smoke by now, but their children were at the receiving end. “Kids below the age of 10 often fall ill and their immune systems are weak,” he said. “The sight of smoke with no visibility is frightening. We have won the court case on the biomedical waste treatment plant but the shifting will take another two years. Till then, anything can happen to our health.”
When petitioner Faiyyaz Alam Shaikh installed AQI-monitoring machines in some areas in Govandi, the highest emissions were sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, dioxins and furans, and nitrogen dioxide, all three to four times greater than the World Health Organisation’s minimum levels. Studies indicate that the oxidative stress and exposure to nitrogen dioxide may directly be responsible for the development of Bell’s Palsy. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that both short- and long-term exposure to air pollution increases the risk of stroke.
Gulam Rusool (60), another Govandi resident, is a living example of this. A permanent fixture on his wheelchair, he has little hope of recovering. “His doctor said he had a stroke because of the polluted environment,” said his family member.
A bitter Shaikh pointed out that despite the serious health ailments, the state’s elected representatives had never brought up the subject of dangerous civic projects in the assembly or the standing committee. “The local corporators, MLAs and MPs have all failed us by bringing in such projects,” said Shaikh. “No developed country brings in incinerators amid residential colonies; all of them work with upgraded technologies to minimise climate crisis and prevent air pollution. We, of course, are considered guinea pigs without rights.”
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