Vehicle junkyard on Tapi riverbed stings Surtis

SURAT: As if the stench wasn’t creating enough problem for residents living alongside the Tapi river, now residents of floral garden and the Shardayatan School area in Umra also have to combat against mosquito menace. What’s stinging the residents more is the fact that the menace owes its roots not to overflowing drains or stagnating water, but vehicles rotting in the riverbed after being dumped there by the city police!

This is also causing a lot of health problems for the residents. However, in spite of several complaints, the city police and even the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) are yet to take a move on this hazardous action.

Sources said that the high tide immerses majority of the vehicles dumped in the riverbed and the residual water left inside the vehicles provide the mosquitoes an ideal breeding spot. Shanker Pawar, a paan shop owner near Shardayatan School complained of mosquitoes even in the afternoon. “The menace has increased from the last few months after the police started dumping the rotting vehicles in the riverbed,” he alleged.

Agreeing to the mosquito problem, Dinesh Gupta, a textile trader residing in an apartment in the area that faces the Tapi river, said, “We have to compulsorily keep our windows shut 24x7 to save ourselves of mosquitoes. This will soon lead to other health problems, besides fears of vector-borne diseases.”

Environmentalist Nainesh Pachchigar said, “The situation speaks of the administration’s utter neglect of the area and its people. It is time for the police and the civic authorities to act on a war footing or else there will be health hazard in Umra area.”

A senior health officer of SMC said, “First, dumping of vehicles in the riverbed is illegal. The police must immediately shift these to some open plot located outside the city. Second, the municipal commissioner has issued strict orders to all civic zones to destroy unclaimed vehicles parked on the roads.”