Anand Mahindra feels 'hurt' over garbage dumping at Gateway of India; offenders fined Rs 10K

Mumbai, Nov 21:  Hours after industrialist Anand Mahindra expressed pain to see some persons dumping garbage from bags in the Arabian Sea near Gateway of India, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation cracked the whip on the culprits, here on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, a video surfaced showing four unknown persons who arrived in a taxi, unloaded at least four large blue plastic bags filled with garbage -- apparently dried flowers, garlands -- and brazenly emptied them into the sea waters, as some stunned locals watched silently.

Some pedestrians quietly made a video and posted it on the social media, which went viral and grabbed the attention of industrialist Anand Mahindra to the grimy incident.

"It hurts just to see this. No amount of improvement in physical infrastructure can improve the city's quality of life if the civic attitude isn't transformed," an exasperated Mahindra said in a social media post.

For effect, he tagged the Mumbai Police and BMC Commissioner I.S. Chahal -- and it did have the desired effect.

Later, the BMC did some successful sleuthing to track down the culprits who had sullied the sea from the taxi number and the A Ward slapped a hefty fine of Rs 10,000 on them. The BMC said that photos and videos of the trash being emptied into the sea near the world-renowned tourist attraction drew strong reactions from citizens and celebs, and announced the punitive action.