Environment minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday said that he has received the report in connection with the Deonar fire in Mumbai and a meeting involving all stakeholders will be held on Wednesday.
Environment minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday said that he has received the report in connection with the Deonar fire in Mumbai and a meeting involving all stakeholders will be held on Wednesday.
“I have received the report and we are going to have a meeting with officials from the Mumbai municipality and local authorities,” Mr Javadekar said on Tuesday. This comes about a week after the minister had constituted a two-member team to look into the Deonar dumping ground fire, which he had blamed on “serious lapses”.
On reports hinting that the fire was “sabotage”, he had said that all such aspects will be discussed during the meeting and action will be taken accordingly. Air quality in several parts of Mumbai had oscillated between “poor” and “very poor” in the wake of the fire.
According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (Safar), the average level of fine respirable pollutants PM 2.5 fell in the “poor” category in Mumbai recently.
A six-month old boy had also died in a locality near the Deonar dumping ground, with the parents saying he died of suffocation due to emission of toxic gases from the blaze, a charge which had been refuted by officials.
Reports said that even as cooling operations continue at the dumping ground, residents in the area and policemen deployed at the site are facing health issues due to the smoke still emanating from the dump. The Congress had staged a road blockade recently near the dumping ground and demanded that it be shifted to Taloja in Navi Mumbai.
