Fire rages on for two days at dump site on Mula-Mutha in Loni Kalbhor; five hospitalised

Pune: A major fire that broke out on heaps of garbage dumped on the Mula-Mutha river bed in Loni Kalbhor led to five students from MIT Vishwashanti Gurukul (VGIS) being hospitalised with breathing issues on Friday. They were later discharged. The incident also forced the campus to declare a holiday for more than 20,000 students on Saturday.The fire, which started on the night of Feb 26 (Thursday), is still raging, with more than 25 fire tenders trying to bring it under control on Friday and Saturday, fire brigade officials said. MIT executive president Mangesh Karad said despite writing multiple times to the gram panchayats of Loni Kalbhor and Kadamwakvasti, around 35 garbage trucks dump waste at the site every day.
"The worst thing is people from gram panchayat and others were dumping garbage from trucks on Friday and Saturday, even when they could see our boys were trying their best to put out the fire. Every time we doused it, a truck would come and dump waste, causing it to reignite. It was a pathetic situation," said Devendra Potphode, chief fire officer, PMRDA.Mahesh Chopde, registrar of MIT ADT University, said the institute had formally escalated the matter to multiple authorities seeking urgent intervention. "We had written to the then guardian minister of Pune, Ajit Pawar, Union minister of state for Jal Shakti Raj Bhushan Choudhary, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (Pune), the principal secretary of the environment department at Mantralaya, the CEO of zilla parishad Pune and the BDO of panchayat samiti, Haveli. The situation along the Mula-Mutha river bed has reached a critical stage, posing serious health risks to our students and the local community. Despite repeated incidents, the dumping and burning of garbage continues unchecked." Chopde urged the authorities to take immediate and coordinated action, stop illegal dumping, and allot land for a scientific solid waste management project before the environmental and public health damage becomes irreversible.Karad said there are around 5,000 residential students and 500 families staying on the campus apart from the 20,000 day scholars, who are severely affected by the toxic fumes. "The campus in the morning was engulfed in thick smoke, which reduced visibility and made it impossible to take a deep breath. We couldn't risk the students' health and hence had to announce a holiday. We have written to so many authorities yet nothing happened. We are waiting for a disaster to happen. I urge the NGT to take a suo moto case," said Karad.The smoke also led to reduced visibility on the Pune-Solapur highway in the early hours of Saturday, affecting vehicular movement. Owing to the severity of the situation, a local company suspended its operations on Saturday, said Chandrakant Borude, PRO of MIT ADT.However, Nagesh Kalbhor, sarpanch of Loni Kalbhor, said they have written multiple times to the zilla parishad and the state govt asking them to allot a land for a solid waste management plant along with a scheme to construct it, but it has fallen on deaf ears. "Near the river, the ZP has a six-acre land where we dump garbage because that is the only place we have. Unfortunately, nearby villages and even the waste collection social initiatives dump their garbage in the same place. Three years ago, there was a similar fire and we had written to the ZP asking for a centralised solid waste management plan for six-seven villages in the area but nothing has happened. The people who go to collect plastic and other scrap sometimes set fire to the garbage piles to clear some areas but this time, probably, the fire became uncontrollable," said Kalbhor.