MUMBAI: The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has come up with an alternative method of protecting the Mithi river from encroachment, reclamation and siltation, after environmentalists protested against the proposal for concrete walls in a coastal regulation zone.

This could be yet another Mithi controversy brewing. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has constructed a temporary road right at the mouth of the river near the Mahim Causeway.

BMC, MMRDA Officials Grope For Solution; Blame Each Other
Manthan K Mehta | TNN

Mumbai: The Tiger does not like the stench from the Mithi. And BMC and MMRDA officials have now put their thinking caps on to prevent the smell from reaching Matoshree.

Mumbai The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is all set to revise the danger level of Mithi River from 2.7 metres to 3 metres. Stating that the Mithi improvement project has facilitated faster flow of the river, civic officials said, there is no threat to the hutments and structures adjoining Mithi even if the water rises till the existing danger level.

Residents of Mumbai hit the panic mode today as the Mithi river, flowing through its suburbs, breached its danger mark, thus reviving memories of the July 2005 floods that claimed over 150 lives.

Siddhesh Inamdar
MUMBAI: The Mithi river, whose flooding had brought Mumbai to a standstill during the deluge in 2005, threatened to go out of control on Tuesday, following heavy rains since the previous evening.

In Kurla, a low-lying area, 140 hutment dwellers from Kranti Nagar were evacuated by fire service officials as the river crossed the danger level of 2.8 metres.

MUMBAI: The Mithi could pose a serious threat to life and property in case of heavy rain.

Although the former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had approved the widening of the Mithi at CST bridge near Kurla up to 100 m in the aftermath of the July 26, 2005 deluge, a directive by the state's empowerment committee led by chief secretary Johny Joseph, reduced the width to just 60 m.

Heavy rains in the early hours of Wednesday brought back memories of July 26, 2005, to the residents of Mumbai when the Mithi river flowing along the suburbs of Mumbai breached its banks and flooded the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport and the low-lying housing colonies in its vicinity.

MUMBAI: With a rare hope of restoring the marine ecosystem in the `poisonous' Mithi, the city's metropolitan administration now wants the river-turned-nullah's unbearable stink in the BKC area to go.

But this exercise, likely to be implemented after the monsoon, is reportedly aimed at increasing the value of BKC land abutting the river in the real estate market--purely for financial gains.

IIT Bombay's suggestion to divert the course of Mithi river alongside the internal boundary of the airport - which is the most viable option to prevent flooding of the river has already mired in controversy with both the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) locking horns over the responsibility of carrying out the work and bearing its expense