While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has intensified its efforts to scientifically dispose of garbage by directing housing complexes to segregate domestic hazardous waste materials along with the regular segregation of wet and dry waste, Chandivli residents have raised concerns about the lack of basic cleanliness of roads and footpaths leading to their homes. Citizens have slammed the civic body for levying heavy penalties on those who fail to segregate waste while neglecting to keep roads free of garbage.

Citizens’ frustration

Vijaya Koteeswaran, 56, a resident of Shiv Om Co-operative Housing Society, said, “We are paying heavy property tax. But all that money is being spent on free saree distributions and other such freebies to those living in the nearby slums that have mushroomed after we bought houses in this area. I began living here in 2004, and at that time, there weren’t even proper roads. It was a beautiful, open green patch of land. It is only in the last few years that all these slums and MHADA houses have cropped up.”