Work at Mithi river takes a hit: No desilting in 8 stretches for 6 months

Mithi river is the city’s largest river which flows a distance of 17.8 km through suburbs before discharging into the Arabian Sea.

Every year, the BMC undertakes desilting across Mumbai’s drains including at Mithi river in a bid to remove silt, muck and sediments which are naturally deposited on water bodies. The removal of silt improves the flow of water as well as the carrying capacity of the river, preventing water logging during the monsoon season. It was after the July 26 deluge of 2005 that rang alarm bells over intensive flooding of Mithi river the BMC launched the annual desilting exercise at the water body, as per the recommendations of the Chitale committee.

For the ongoing year of 2025-2026, the BMC issued a work order of Rs 90 crore to three contractors – Tridev Infraprojects, JRS infrastructure and Bhumika Transport – to carry out desilting across the entire 17.9 km stretch of the river in three separate packages. The work order was awarded in the month of April 2025 for carrying out desilting over a period of one year.

Mithi river is the city’s largest river which flows a distance of 17.8 km through suburbs before discharging into the Arabian Sea. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)

Between April 2025 and July 2025, data shows that 9,930 trucks were deployed across the ten stretches of Mithi river to remove over 1.68 lakh metric tonnes of silt and other materials in the desilting exercise.

However, desilting work at Mithi took a significant hit since.

Between August 2025 and January 31, the BMC extracted “zero” silt across eight of Mithi river’s ten stretches. These include the stretches between airport box culvert upstream to Bamandayapada bridge, Bamandayapada bridge to Filterpada in Powai, Mahim causeway to Sion Bandra Link road bridge, Sion Bandra link road bridge to BKC connector bridge, Tail channel behind Maharashtra Nature park to BKC connector bridge in the eastern bank, tail channel from Dharavi outfall to Mithi river at Sion Bandra Link Road, Kurla to BKC connector bridge and the final stretch from Vakola bridge to Mithi River.

Data from the Storm Water Drains department’s public records showed that during this period, only two stretches – Teacher’s Colony to Kurla Kalina bridge and the Kurla Kalina bridge to Airport box culvert — were desilted with only 523 trucks deployed and 10,530 metric tonnes of silt extracted in the six months between August 2025 and January 2026.

Incidentally, it was in August 2025 that flooding along Mithi river sparked concerns and led to evacuation of residents of Kranti Nagar slum belt after waters from Mithi river nearly breached the ‘danger levels’, following the torrential downpour between August 18 and 19.

BMC response

When contacted about the lag, senior BMC officials said that the work along Mithi River has taken a hit owing to the involvement of the contractors in the ongoing ED investigation over Mithi river as well as blacklisting by the BMC itself.

Of the three contractors roped in for desilting, two have been involved in criminal cases while Bhumika transport has been blacklisted for shoddy works in the city’s M/East, M/West ward belt.

“While the work was awarded to three contractors, one of them was blacklisted while two others were named in criminal cases. Upon these developments, we sought to appoint a new contractor on an emergency basis to replace these contractors. However, due to the ongoing Mithi investigation, no new contractors were willing to touch the desilting work of the river. Following this, we once again went ahead with the existing contractors to ensure desilting was not interrupted. However, soon, the top brass and middle management of these companies were arrested and that started having an impact on pre-monsoon and during monsoon desilting work,” said a senior BMC official.

On its part, the BMC maintains that only 10 per cent of desilting work is carried in the post monsoon period.

“As per the contract, 80 per cent desilting is done pre-monsoon, while 10 per cent is done during monsoon and 10 per cent post monsoon. The desilting in post-monsoon work is carried out only intermittently with particular focus on floating domestic waste. Owing to this and the absence of contractors, the number of silt extracted is lower,” added the official.

BMC data shows that even as the civic body had set a target to extract 53,578 metric tonnes of silt from Mithi River’s ten stretches in the post-monsoon season, it has only been able to achieve 30.14 per cent of its target till date.

What next

Amid the lacunae of contractors, the BMC is set to float fresh tenders to appoint three new contractors to carry out desilting work at Mithi river.

According to senior officials, the tender is likely to be floated in the coming week with the tender file currently under review.

While the final cost of the desilting tenders is yet to be ascertained, civic brass said the cost is likely to hover under Rs 90 crore. “We are hoping that some bidders will participate in the bidding process. While desilting took a hit in the previous season, we are eyeing to achieve our target in the next season,” an official from BMC said.

While efforts to curb sewage outfall and clean Mithi lag to completion, desilting has remained constant annual activity to mitigate flooding. Data procured under the Right to Information (RTI) act shows that between 2006 and 2025, the BMC has spent at least Rs. 415 crore in desilting the Mithi river.