BMC holds meeting with warring Bhuleshwar residents and goldsmiths

MUMBAI: Following the Bombay high court’s orders, the BMC on Thursday held a meeting with the residents of Bhuleshwar and the goldsmith associations in the area. The residents have long claimed to be troubled by the pollution emitted by the gold- and silver-processing units while the goldsmiths have spoken up in support of their centuries-old trade.

“The gold and silver units emit toxic acidic gases when they process, clean and polish the metals, polluting our area,” said an exasperated Shiv Kanodia, managing committee member of the Bhuleshwar Residents’ Association which has been fighting this since its 2002 PIL in the high court. “There are at least 3,000 to 4,000 illegal chimneys here, operating industrial units in a residential area. We are very troubled by this, and now we’re seeing our grandchildren face health complications due to it.”

Kanodia has the receipts; since the start of their fight, several BMC officials have declared the goldsmith units illegal and directed that action be taken against them, yet the action of demolishing the chimneys heeded only temporary results. He also quoted a study done by KEM Hospital in 2005, which found that 55% of the population in Bhuleshwar was suffering from asthma, bronchitis or restrictive lung disease. A study by the MPCB reported high levels of the pollutants NOX and NO2, used by the gold units, in the area.

While the goldsmith associations admitted the use of acids like nitric acid for gold-polishing, they downplayed the pollution. “There are only around 100 chimneys in the area,” said Mayur Chandrakant Kamble, president of the Surarnakar Hastkala Kamgar Sena, one of the seven goldsmith associations present at the meeting. “These have come up in the 2000s, and over the years, we have adopted filtration technology to reduce the impact of the gases. These gases are only emitted during polishing of gold and silver, and the units are small-scale so they do not emit much.”

Kamble, instead, emphasised the heritage of the craft in the area—between 150 and 200 years old—and the livelihoods it supports. “Each of the associations that attended have at least 10,000 goldsmiths in them,” he said. “Around half of them own units in the area, which we can approximate at around 40,000. Even if the BMC wants to shift us, they did not have any answers to our questions on whether they had surveyed the units, where we would be moved and so on.”

A decision on the two-decade-old feud, however, is nowhere in sight.

Vishnu Vidhate, assistant commissioner of C ward, explained, “As per the directions of the urban development department, in accordance with their reply in the HC, we were asked to hold a meeting. The objective was to hear both points of view. It is natural that the residents do not want pollution in their neighbourhoods while the goldsmiths are defending their old business and have claimed they have adopted improved filtration technology. The decision is not ours to take, as it will be deliberated by the courts and government.”