Mumbai : The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation slapped the offenders with the whip on Tuesday, hours after businessman Anand Mahindra expressed his discomfort over seeing some people discard trash from bags in the Arabian Sea close to the Gateway of India.
A video that appeared earlier on Tuesday showed four unidentified people getting out of a taxi, dumping at least four big blue plastic bags full of trash—presumably garlands of dried flowers—and dumping them into the sea, while several shocked bystanders looked on in silence.
Anand Mahindra, an industrialist, became aware of the unclean episode when some passersby secretly recorded a video and shared it on social media. The video quickly gained widespread attention.
“Just looking at this hurts. If the civic mindset isn’t changed, no amount of physical infrastructure development would be able to raise the quality of life in the city, an irate Mahindra stated on social media.
He tagged BMC Commissioner I.S. Chahal and the Mumbai Police for impact, and it accomplished the desired effect.
Later, the BMC did some successful sleuthing to track down the culprits who had sullied the sea from the taxi number and the A Ward slapped a hefty fine of Rs 10,000 on them. The BMC said that photos and videos of the trash being emptied into the sea near the world-renowned tourist attraction drew strong reactions from citizens and celebs, and announced the punitive action.
