Fact Check: Is This River Of Garbage Photo That Of Mumbai’s Mithi Or Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati?

Mumbai: An image comparing a garbage-choked river to a spanking clean riverfront is doing rounds on social media. The former is claimed to be Mithi river in Mumbai and the other is said to be Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad.

BJP Mahila Morcha’s Priti Gandhi also tweeted this image stating that despite similar budgets, the Maharashtra government has failed to clean up the river.

However, the photograph of the garbage infested river is not of Mithi river but from Manila in Philippines.

The first image is correctly mentioned as that of Sabarmati riverfront.

The latter was uploaded on iStock image sharing website on January 6, 2008 with the caption: “A river of garbage clogs a creek in Manila. Poverty and garbage disposal are major problems in the Philippines”. The photo has been carried by some websites with articles linked to polluted river in the Philippines.

In fact, both Sabarmati and Mithi river have been criticized for pollution levels. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board in 2017 had found that the mouth of Mithi river at Versova beach had pollution levels almost 13 times above the safety limit.

Similarly, the data of Ministry of Environment and Forest earlier this year stated that Sabarmati is one of the most polluted rivers in India.