THANE, Nov. 18 -- With garbage collection halted for the past week in Kalwa, Mumbra and Diva, local residents are struggling to live amid the unbearable stench. As waste piles up across housing societies, residents are afraid the unsanitary conditions may lead to an outbreak of diseases. On Monday, a group of residents from Mumbra and Kalwa and leaders from the NCP (SP) staged a protest by dumping garbage outside the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) headquarters, to highlight the civic body's failure to manage waste in their localities. The sudden halt in garbage collection stems from a land dispute. The TMC-operated waste management dumping ground at Daighar is located on land owned by the local community. After the community opposed the garbage dumping on their land, the TMC could not identify any immediate alternative site to dispose of garbage and stopped collecting garbage across Kalwa, Mumbra, and Diva. Thane generates approximately 1,100 metric tonnes of waste daily. Earlier, the TMC relied on dumping grounds at Atkoli, Bhiwandi and at Diva, but both sites are now being converted into green zones through bamboo plantations. Highlighting the issue, Abhijit Pawar, district president of the NCP-SP, along with former corporators from Kalwa and Mumbra, led a group of protestors who brought garbage in a dumper, dumped it outside the TMC headquarters, and demonstrated outside the TMC commissioner Saurabh Rao's cabin. Pawar said, "TMC collects taxes from residents, but when it comes to providing services, they fail to offer even basic civic facilities," he said. Later, Rao met the protesting delegation and informed them that operational issues at the dumping ground had caused the disruption. During the meeting, an NCP (SP) leader from Mumbra, Sanu Pathan, offered his land in Mumbra to be used as a temporary dumping ground for waste, a proposal that Rao accepted. Meanwhile, a Shiv Sena leader from Diva, Rohidas Munde, criticized the TMC's reliance on private land for waste disposal. "Despite being a major municipal corporation, TMC should not depend on other people's land for dumping waste," he said. Munde further demanded the creation of a new dumping ground near Ghodbunder road and warned that residents may stop paying taxes if the situation does not improve....