The Bombay High Court (HC) on Wednesday, July 9, gave more time to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to make sure that bakeries in Mumbai move to gas or other cleaner fuels.
The court extended the earlier deadline of July 8. It set the next hearing for July 28 and said that the time already granted should be extended until then. The original order was passed on January 9. At that time, a special bench of the high court had asked the authorities to complete the conversion within six months.
The order came while hearing public interest litigations on rising air pollution in Mumbai and nearby areas. According to BMC, 311 bakeries, or 54 percent of the total, had not yet made the switch to green fuels. These bakeries had failed to follow the court’s directions by the July 8 deadline.
The plea was filed by Faiz Alam Bakery, Masoodul Hasan Khan, and others. They asked for more time to follow the court order and BMC’s earlier notice. A bench of Justices Makarand S. Karnik and Nitin R. Borkar accepted the request after hearing an interim application.
The bench also directed BMC to wait for the next hearing before taking action based on its January 29 notice. BMC statistics show that these bakeries are responsible for 6 percent of Mumbai’s air pollution.
As per sources, many bakeries in Mumbai still use traditional bhattis. These are dome-shaped ovens made of bricks and mortar. They are heated using wood fires and are used to bake pav, a common bread in the city.
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