May 20, 2025

Introduced centuries back as an ornamental import from Brazil, water hyacinth is now the country’s most relentless aquatic weed, thriving on sewage, fertiliser runoff and civic neglect. Look out over Powai Lake on a warm April morning, and it’s a picture of calm — a wide, unbroken green expanse most Mumbaikars would envy. But that lush carpet isn’t grass, nor a garden. It’s water hyacinth, a thick, invasive weed that has been smothering India’s water bodies for decades. Just last year, Mumbai’s civic body hauled out over 5,000 metric tonnes of it from Powai. A year later, it’s like it never left. Municipalities spend crores on cutting, scooping, and dragging it out, but like a ‘Terminator’ of the aquatic world, it’s always back.

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Tags: Water hyacinth, invasive species, aquatic weed, india, pollution,