The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has expressed its displeasure over the failure of the government and the civic agencies to clean the city where waste could be seen anywhere on the streets.
In what started two months ago as a matter concerning contaminated water pumping out of supply lines and borewells , the hearing on Wednesday encompassed poor waste collection and garbage lying on the streets.
A Bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar showed the counsel appearing for the Delhi government and the municipal corporations a newspaper report on a heap of garbage lying on a road in south Delhi.
“Why are you not clearing garbage from Delhi. Your workers are not lifting it because they are not being paid. Mechanised cleaning is not tough. There are places in the world where just four people are cleaning 40 miles,” said the Bench. “We thought we are living in the Capital of the country. To do mechanised cleaning is not a big job. We are a very highly populated country, but there are countries where you would not find a polythene bag or even a leaf on roads and this is when they do not have so much manpower like we have,” it said.
“The question is what someone coming from any part of the world or for that matter a local would think. How can you not clean the roads? It is done with the taxpayers’ money. You have not waved any tax so as not to clean the streets due to whatever reasons,” said the Tribunal.
