Environmental problems in mumbai?

The experience of India is of enormously increased migration into the cities; and Mumbai continues to attract thousands each year who simply have nowhere else to go. The cheerful proponents of corporate-led projects, those who speak of turning Mumbai into another Singapore believe that the market mechanism will provide the most effective answer to the city鈥檚 problem.



They portray market forces as a kind of impersonal bailiff who will more or less painlessly evict Mumbai鈥檚 five or six million poor. Alas, they will have to be assisted by real flesh and blood; a military operation far greater even than the scale of Mrs Gandhi鈥檚 relocation of the city鈥檚 poor during the Emergency of 20 years ago. Not everybody recognizes the wisdom of appointing market forces as the arbiters of their lives.



In November 1994, the Civic Executive Health Officer denied that Mumbai is a centre for malaria, TB, polio, hepatitis, gastro-enteritis and now aids. He insisted that 鈥榗ivic services are working optimally. But most of our efforts get neutralized, sometimes even defeated, by the huge concentrations of slums, mostly unauthorized, which have abysmal hygienic conditions and are the ideal breeding ground for disease.鈥?br>


What he did say was that the urban poor are there to service industries that are dangerous to life. A Supreme Court lawyer, M C Mehta, warned that Mumbai is sitting on a live volcano because of the danger from the chemical industries in the city. Hospitals in the city could not cater for the thousands who could be affected by major gas leakages.



There are virtually no exit routes from the city, so the people are captive.



The Mumbai Environmental Action Group pointed out that the Government has relaxed stringent environmental regulations in the name of liberalization. A report in January 1995 prepared in co-operation with the World Bank, non-governmental organizations and the government studied the Mumbai Metropolitan region from 1992-1994. It presented a story of pollution, inadequate landfills, hazardous industrial wastes and rampant diseases. Sewage in the city is not treated before discharge into the Arabian Sea at any of the three Corporation areas. All sewers overflowed into coastal waters adjoining Mumbai, which made them unfit for recreational use throughout the year. Hundreds of septic tanks overflow into the ground, causing flies and mosquitoes to breed. Over 5.5 million people live in slums, where enteric and respiratory disorders are common, and gastro-enteritis, tuberculosis, malaria and filaria are 鈥榬ampant鈥?









http://www.newint.org/issue290/volcano.h鈥?/a>Environmental problems in mumbai?Poverty-related environmental issues show very little significance. Industrialization- and urban-related environmental issues coexist with rapid economic development-related environmental issues. This provides the necessary inputs to city planner so as to avoid various environmental costs that other cities have already experienced.