BMC slaps Rs 9.25 cr in penalties after AI model flags irregularities in desilting drive

In a bid to prevent flooding, the BMC carries out a year-long desilting drive across the city’s minor and major drains along Mithi river to increase the water bed’s carrying capacity.

Of the total target, the civic body aims to achieve 80 percent of the total target in the pre-monsoon period.

The civic authorities rope in private contractors for the exercise to remove the silt on the basis of the quantum of silt extracted.

To prevent falsification of data, the BMC, last year, deployed AI models which are trained to detect irregularities in desilting based on the pictures and videos of silt, vehicular registration among others.

On Saturday, the BMC said that the inspection of available records pointed to an array of violations during the desilting drive.

According to officials, the model noted violations in tarpaulin covering, reuse of same images and inconsistencies, deposition of dust, failure to upload site images and videos as well as mismatch in number of registered vehicles.

“Some other operational shortcomings included inadequate equipment, insufficient manpower as well as failure to provide safety gear to workers,” said a civic statement.

Additional Municipal Commissioner (Projects) Abhijit Bangar said, “Any lapse in the ongoing desilting operation is unacceptable and we have a zero tolerance policy in this regard. The combination of AI-based monitoring and physical site inspections have been effective in recognising violations.”

This year, the BMC had set a May 31 deadline to extract 8.41 lakh metric tonnes of silt as a part of its pre-monsoon desilting exercise across the city’s minor, major drains and Mithi river.

As of Saturday, the civic body has been able to achieve 85 per cent of its total desilting target at Mithi river even as 100 percent of the target has been achieved across minor and major drains of Mumbai.