New Delhi: Senior officials of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) will meet NGT (National Green Tribunal) authorities on Monday to discuss a proposed new landfill site on the outskirts of Delhi, said the civic body’s mayor on Sunday.
The meeting comes close on the heels of an accident in East Delhi triggered by the collapse of a portion of the towering Ghazipur landfill in which two people lost their lives while five others were injured.
“A meeting is scheduled on September 4 with the authorities at the NGT to discuss the proposed new landfill site to be spread over 150 acres in Outer Delhi as an alternative to the Ghazipur site,” the East Delhi mayor, Neema Bhagat, said.
She said that the 45 m high landfill at Ghazipur was saturated in 2002 itself and that the civic body has been “looking for an alternative site for a long time, but a clearance from the NGT is needed before allowing of any site by the DDA.”
The EDMC manages the landfill site that was started in 1984 and is spread over 29 acres. According to officials, the permissible height for a garbage dump is 20 m. Every day 2,500-3,000 metric tonnes of garbage is dumped at the Ghazipur site.
The humongous heap sits like a Leviathan with kites and crows circling overhead even as the stench from the mountain of trash fills the air. In the wake of the accident on Friday, lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal, on Saturday, imposed a ban on dumping of garbage at the Ghazipur landfill site. The waste meant for it is now being diverted to a temporary site in Ranikhera near the Delhi-Haryana border.
Earlier, a decision was taken to divert the garbage to Bhalswa landfill site (about 50 metre high), but as it is already used way beyond its saturation, a new site was identified, a civic official said.
Incidentally, the EDMC signed a MoU last November with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for using the solid waste from the site in the construction of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, which is a section of the NH-24. “The NHAI has assured the LG that it will begin the process of lifting, segregating, and processing of the solid waste by November 2017 for its use in road construction,” the LG office said. The other major dumping sites in the city are in Okhla and Narela-Bawana.
