Vasai civic officials get 2 years in jail

MUMBAI: Sending out an unmistakably strong message to government officials who do not implement anti-pollution norms, a Thane court has sentenced four officials of the Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) to two years’ simple imprisonment for failing to control pollutants streaming into the Vasai creek. 

Thane chief judicial magistrate S M Bhosale held Vasai-Virar deputy municipal commissioners Govind Pawar, Vilas Dhage, Devidas Tekhale and Maruti Kodke guilty of failing to control the waste flowing into the creek. They were also held responsible for the civic agency’s failure to set up a sewage treatment plant. 

Advocate B M Jethani, counsel for the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), told TOI that it was the first time in recent memory that civic officials were prosecuted under the special law enacted to punish polluters.