With monsoon approaching and knowing the fact that Mumbai faces the problem of water logging and the water bodies being filled with dirt, a city based organization cleaned the river at Kranti Nagar in Kandivli. River March, a group comprising more than 150 members started this clean-up drive to free the riverbed of the filth Mumbaiites have dumped in for years through sewage disposal.

For five consecutive Sundays starting from April 9 the organization has been cleaning the river and removed about a lakh kgs of garbage. The citizens also received help from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on the first two Sundays.

As per a report published in the Hindustan Times, Tejas Shah , a member of River March said, “During one of our surveys, we saw that Poisar was choking with plastic and we estimated that the garbage in it could be weigh up to thousands of tonnes. We saw people living close to such filth, defecating in the open and decided to do something about it, we used all our resources to gather like-minded people and started cleaning it.”

Poisar originates in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), passes through Kandivli and empties into the Marve creek.

The volunteers said the stretch, which they cleaned is in the periphery of the reserved forest and has over 14,000 illegal slum structures. “BMC or forest department’s inaction have let these slums come up. Now, they are dumping domestic waste right into Poisar as they do not have a sewage line,” said Shah.

The members of the group believe that civic organization should stop concretization of the river beds as it killed aquatic life. With the initiative of the citizens to lean the water bodies, it is surely motivating for others too. Taking the message ahead that even the citizens are equally responsible for any work related to the city, this is surely a move that has made Mumbai proud and added to its already existing spirit of the city.