Mumbai’s civic standing committee has rejected an Rs 8.25 crore proposal to wash 677 km of city roads daily, citing low water stocks and the 10% water cut currently in force across the city. The decision has exposed a broader gap between Mumbai’s need to control road dust and its limited infrastructure for supplying treated non-potable water.
The proposal was intended to address air pollution and improve road cleanliness through high-pressure water spraying. Civic officials said regular cleaning of public roads was an important measure to control dust pollution. The plan involved deploying water tankers fitted with jetting systems across Mumbai’s seven administrative zones for 150 days.
Tankers with capacities of 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 litres were to be used under the proposal. The civic body had estimated that the city’s dam water stocks would last until next June, but committee members opposed allocating water for road washing while supplies remained constrained. Members of the ruling front also rejected the proposal.
BJP group leader Ganesh Khankar demanded that the plan be shelved in view of Mumbai’s water situation. The state is also facing drought conditions, with the government seeking more than Rs 17,000 crore in central assistance, according to the report.
The committee’s decision has not resolved the pollution-control challenge. Congress member Ashraf Azmi said the city’s air quality index was 151 and argued that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation did not have a programme to control air pollution. He supported a version of the proposal covering 377 roads and questioned how the civic body would source water for washing them.
Azmi pointed to the estimated 4,000 wells in Mumbai and said the BMC had previously stated that it would revive wells to provide non-potable water. He also sought a separate Hydrant Policy to control rising air pollution and dust while strengthening water arrangements for the fire brigade and gardens.
MNS member Yashwant Killedar said the current water situation was not suitable for using water to wash roads, but noted that road dust was contributing to rising pollution. He said non-potable water could be one solution, but questioned where the BMC would obtain the required supply when it had only one centre for treating sewage water.
Killedar called for infrastructure to process sewage water and urged the civic body to examine alternatives for controlling dust without using potable water. His intervention highlighted the institutional issue behind the rejected proposal: the city has identified a need for dust suppression but lacks enough established systems to produce and distribute non-potable water at the required scale.
The road-washing plan was therefore caught between two civic priorities. High-pressure cleaning could support dust control, but implementing it during a water cut would require a reliable source that does not compete with domestic supply. The standing committee’s rejection leaves the BMC without the proposed citywide road-washing programme, while demands for a Hydrant Policy, well revival and expanded sewage-treatment capacity remain on the table.
