Revival of Ulhas River
The Ulhas River is the last perennial river, which brings fresh water in the Mumbai metropolitan region. It starts into two. above Karjat and end at Ulhas creek at Balkum, where it splits into two. One goes to the Vasai & one goes to the thane creek. This river has been polluted by untreated sewage and industrial effluents throughout its stretch. Against which we moved to NGT in 2013 and the Hon’ble Tribunal was pleased to grant an order imposing a cost of 96 Crores on polluters, many of Mumbai government bodies, Civic bodies of Ambarnath, Badlapur, Kalyan-Dombivli & Ulhasnagar four municipal corporation were asked to pay the money and also the MIDC’s for polluting a river. The case went to the Supreme Court where the fine was challenged. Before that the people who were fined moved the Hon’ble HC, which stayed the order of the NGT & gave relief to the petitioners by stopping them paying the fine. Aggrieved by this, Vanashakti moved the Hon’ble Supreme Court which up held the order of NGT & imposed the fine on the Government & a fine of rupees 100Cr was paid up in the Hon’ble Supreme Court. This money will go towards making a plan to restore the river & also the Hon’ble Court is monitoring the progress of the revival of the river on a very close day to day basis & the periodically reports are submitted to the Hon’ble Supreme Court & the river Ulhas is being revived. It is most important to people know that the khemani Nallah was bringing sewage from Ulhasnagar city and mixing it with the drinking water at Shahad, So this was a criminal act which was going on for the last 40 years & finally it has stopped now. So people have access to fresh drinking water, which is not carrying diseases. It’s one of biggest success story of Vanashakti.