He made this observation after his visit to the nallahs across the eastern and western suburbs along with deputy mayor Ram Barot, standing committee chairperson Sada Sarvankar and mediapersons. However, he said he was satisfied with the work done in the city and the eastern suburbs.

Sarvankar accused the BMC of ``siphoning off people's money'' and, at Kurar village, Malad, called for suspension of an assistant engineer because solid waste material was found floating on the nallah. ``I came here 15 days ago and found the heap. Now it is still intact. A huge part of it has been pushed under the footover bridge to hide it from mediapersons,'' he charged, demanding stern action against the contractor.

However, deputy chief engineer (western suburbs) Jeetendra Shah said 90 per cent of the work was complete. He displayed photographsof the nallahs before the work had begun adding that the western nallahs had garbage or cow-dung thrown in from the stables from Santacruz up to Dahisar.

Officials said the storm water drains have been cleared. ``Local residents blame the BMC, saying that when the drains are flooded, water enters their homes. What they don't tell you is that it is they who throw garbage into the nallahs and choke them,'' an official pointed out. Officials also said the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation had built a bridge at Malad at a level higher than that of the nallah's bed. As a result, water which has to flow straight will instead slant towards the residential sites, they explained.

Patil appealed to the local residents to refrain from throwing garbage into the nallah, only to be told that in the absence of a dump they had no other option.

The team also inspected the 3.5-km-long Dadar-Dharavi nallah, where a dredger was being used to remove silt, theMukhyadhyapak nallah between the Matunga railway tracks, the Mahul creek, the JK Chemicals nallah, Laxmibaug nallah at Ghatkopar (E), the RCC box drain on the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, Kurar Village, Majaswadi in Jogeshwari, the Highway Channel at Vakola and Khernagar in Bandra (E).

Deputy municipal commissioner N B Achrekar said work on the Highway Channel has begun only recently due to the dispute between the highway authorities who finally asked BMC on May 25 to undertake work from Bandra to Vakola. The BMC will spend an additional Rs 18 lakh for this work, he said. Achrekar noted that so far Rs 7.50 crore had been spent on desilting storm water drains and another Rs 1.20 crore had been paid to the railways to do the same under railway tracks and culverts. Errant contractors have so far been fined Rs 5.8 lakh, he said.