Pune:
An environment officer from the Pune Municipal Corporation created history when he went up in the sky using his paragliding skills to carry out an aerial survey of the Mutha river zone before penning a new environment report on water pollution.
Mangesh Dighe (40), a postgraduate from the MSc Environmental Science faculty, is the name of the daring officer, who also took beautiful pictures of the city's landscape during his aerial survey.
Dighe is currently working on the restoration and beautification of rivers and lakes in the city. Risking his life by flying alone in the sky with motorised paragliding equipment and a digital SLR camera, Dighe clubbed his passion for flying with his love for the environment to carry out the aerial survey.
Dighe, who has represented the country in France for a motorised paragliding event, has obtained training from the Hadapsar gliding centre and has made over 6,500 flights with his motorised paragliding equipment in the country and abroad.
Dighe, who is heading the effort to prepare the PMC's Environmental Status Report (ESR), was in the sky for more than 35 minutes on December 15 last year after he took off from the Fergusson College hill armed with his beloved camera.
"I travelled over five kilometres over the Mutha river and Hanuman Tekdi area and enjoyed the beautiful landscape of the city, getting a bird's eye view of the water body. The first-hand information I was able to get from this will be useful in verifying the satellite images of the Mutha available on the Internet," Dighe said.
Having accomplished 6,500 flights with his gliding equipment in the past 20 years, Dighe is now planning to make a similar survey of the suburban areas."I am thinking of flying over thet Hadapsar area, which has drastically changed over the past decade," he said.
Dighe said though there is air, water and noise pollution in the city, it looks very green from the sky.
"Even the Mutha, which has lost much of its flora and fauna, looks to be in good health as both the channels have natural greenery," Dighe said. "The old parts of the city have many buildings, but the Deccan Gymkhana, Karve Road and Senapati Bapat Road areas are covered with trees and the greenery is heavenly." He said his survey indicated that the old city needs much tree plantation in the near future.
"Pune from the top also looks like the city of bridges on the river," he said. "Sangam Bridge, Nava Pul, Tilak Bridge, Balgandharva Bridge, Gadgil Bridge, Sambhaji Bridge, Yashwantrao Chavan Bridge and Mhatre Bridge are located along a six-kilometre stretch of the Mutha."
Dighe's findings- The city looks green and clean from the sky
- Mutha river also appears clean, with greenery on both banks
- Concrete jungle is more in the old parts of the city compared to Deccan Gymkhana, Shivaji Nagar and Karve Road areas and a part of Kothrud
- PMC has constructed centralised channels on Mutha river scientifically and topologically they are correct
- A total of 98 bridges are constructed on the Mutha, making the city a 'City of Bridges'
What ESR says
- Rapid increase in population leads to more sewage and increases pollution in Mutha
- Mutha's dissolved oxygen level ranges from 5.89 to 0 mg at various locations. The level increases slightly at the Sangam Bridge
- Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand at Chavan Bridge are as high as 38.99 mg per litre and 102 .05 mg per litre respectively
- The water is highly polluted at Erandwane and Chavan Bridge as the quantum of unutilised domestic water flow is much more and water is slow flowing
- As per the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board norms, the Mutha comes under A-IV, that is not fit for drinking as the nullahs joining the river are polluted because of human interference
After the aerial survey, Dighe and his colleagues are geared up to lay sewage pipelines on both sides of the Mutha, covering a total of 15 km. "We have completed 15 per cent of the work and have to complete the remaining work before the monsoon starts in the first week of June," said Sanjeev Ballal, Assistant Engineer, River Improvement Project. "The 1,600 mm RCC pipes will carry a total 744 MLD of sewage water up to the sewage treatment plants."