Mumbai: Citizens should not blame the C alone for Mumbai’s chronic monsoon waterlogging, remarked the Bombay high court on Tuesday, observing that encroachments and clogged drains have made the situation “our own creation”.The petition before the HC was a dispute concerning a ‘loop road’ at Mandale village on land which BMC said was not its land, but belonged to the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) where Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Colony is located. The HC issued a notice to DAE.Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad made the oral remark on Mumbai’s monsoon situation after BMC counsel, advocate general Milind Sathe, said it was not legally bound to remove any encroachers on the private land, and an opposing lawyer said drains next to the road are maintained by the municipal corporation.The ACJ orally then said: “BMC gave us drains. What do we do? We fill it with dirt…cover the gutter to grab land. BMC gave us footpaths. We put pav bhaji stalls on it…Look outside the HC, there is no space to walk… We are destined to see rainwater on roads…we cannot help it. Everything is clogged.”He further quipped, “Our habit is to rob our own motherland…We put pavement blocks. They are inaugurated by people’s representatives and then they become parking areas. One spell of rain blocks roads in Mumbai…it is our creation.’’ACJ Ghuge added, “When the corporation comes for demolition, you say ‘Give me seven days’ notice’. …When one grabs land, nobody reads the law. So that is how things are in Mumbai.’’Sathe and advocate Joel Carlos for BMC said the issue was that the sanctioned road was 30ft wide in the 1991 Development Plan and the DAE requested the civic body in 2024 to remove any encroachers and make it a 50ft wide loop road. Sathe said if the DAE hands over vacant land it will construct a 40ft loop road.A civic affidavit on Tuesday said the BMC had demolished structures in 2011-12 before starting construction on the sanctioned 30ft wide road and for its construction had cut 59 trees, retained 37 trees in site, and replanted 46 trees. The BMC contested a claim that 192 trees were felled for the road work.
