BJP corporator Anil Shirole said, “The status report on environment is published every year, but there is hardly anything that comes out of it. The civic body hardly cares to implement the suggestions given in it.”

He added, “Under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the union government has started assisting the cities to help themselves renovate. However, as far as the removal of the slums, there should have been a master plan and a time-bound programme.”

Criticising, among other things, the garbage disposal situation in the city, Ujjwal Keskar said, “It has been found that even after segregating the dry and wet garbage in some select localities in the city, this collected garbage again dumped together. It only shows that the civic administration is not serious about the issue.”

Avinash Bagwe and Avinash Salve, both of Congress said that despite being an important issue, the topic of environment comes for discussion only for one day in the whole year. “Therefore, this farce of publishing the ESRs should be stopped immediately,” they said.

Arvind Shinde said, “The bulging population is the root cause of all the troubles. Therefore, the civic body should initiate steps for controlling the population.”

He said, “The environment is also getting affected due to inordinate construction activity in the city. Every year, permission is given for carrying out construction on 8-lakh sq ft of land and most of the builders are violating the construction norms, thereby posing a threat to the environment.”

Shankar Kemse said, “The report comes out every year, but there is no basic infrastructure in our wards, which should be provided on a priority basis.”