Vasaikars Protest Illegal Filling of 3,067 Square Meter Bhuigaon Village Pond

Local residents in Vasai, Maharashtra, are organizing active community protests to stop the ongoing filling and burial of their local ponds. The mobilization of the local residents, known as Vasaikars, aims to protect the region's remaining water bodies and preserve the local environment from commercial and urban encroachment.

In Bhuigaon Village, a prominent example of this reclamation is a 3,067-square-meter public waterbody that has been entirely covered over. Today, an informal housing settlement sits solidly on the land where the large body of water ought to be.

Local resident Ranjeet Vartak recently highlighted the loss of the Bhuigaon Village pond, navigating a rutted track in the village to point out a series of privately owned asbestos sheds that now stand on the site. According to Vartak, these privately owned sheds are currently being rented out to migrant workers on what was previously a public waterbody on revenue land.

To demonstrate the illegality of the reclamation, Vartak referenced the official CIDCO Development Plan Aerial Survey for the Vasai Virar Sub-Region, which was published in 1998. The official survey map clearly shows the 3,067-square-meter pond as an existing waterbody. Vartak noted that until just a few years ago, the area remained a public waterbody before it was illegally reclaimed.

The environmental degradation is not isolated to Bhuigaon Village. In Vasai’s Rewad Wadi area, another local waterbody is facing a similar fate. Seventy percent of a pond, locally referred to as a bavkhal, located in Chopra Farm, has already been filled in.

These ongoing incidents have sparked widespread concern among Vasaikars, who are holding their ground to prevent further destruction of their natural resources. The community continues to push back against the burial of these ponds, demanding the preservation of Vasai's natural hydrology.