swarm of flies circle the living room as Mohammad Khurshid opens the door to his house. “See, this is what I mean,” says the labourer, who works and lives in the shadows of East Delhi’s Ghazipur landfill.
The flies are the least of the problems being faced by those living around the landfill, which has attained monstrous proportions since it was set up 1984.
The landfill is spread over 70 acres and the garbage is piled up 40 metres high — as tall as a 14-storey building. Over 2,000 tonnes of garbage is dumped here daily.
Over the years, the residents have complained about the foul smell, the toxic smoke that emanate from numerous fires in the landfill and the general lack of sanitation around the area. The situation is no different across the city for residents of Jahangirpuri in North Delhi, where the nearby Bhalswa landfill towers over the landscape.
This week, the fires fed by garbage at the Bhalswa landfill have caught the attention of the Delhi government, which has accused the BJP-ruled municipal corporation of stoking the flames to derail the ongoing odd-even scheme.
While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP blame each other, residents of Jahangirpuri and Ghazipur say their complaints are still being ignored. Residents of the unauthorised slums of Ghazipur as well as those of the DDA colony Ghazipur Dairy say the smell from the landfill, and the smoke from the waste-to-energy plant there, have made breathing difficult.
Aarti Sharma, who has lived in the DDA colony for 17 years, says she has developed breathlessness. “I don’t have any other medical issues, but for the last few years I’ve been getting headaches and find myself out of breath while walking around the colony,” said Ms. Sharma.
Another resident, Rama Barua, who has lived in the area for 24 years, says the polluted air from the landfill was hitting senior citizens the worst. “During the monsoon, the garbage gets wet and the wind blows, bringing the awful stench into our homes,” said Ms. Barua.
Pramila, a government servant, who did not want her full name identified, said in the 21 years she has lived in the colony, occasional fires have been erupting at the landfill. “The smell becomes intolerable when it rains,” she says.
Manju Raghav, who has lived at Ghazipur Dairy for 21 years, says that air-conditioners, refrigerators and televisions tend to break down more often. “The gases released from the dump corrode the insides of the appliances. Most of us don’t have air-conditioners because the pipes leak and the gas has to be re-filled every year,” said Ms. Raghav.
For Jahangirpuri residents, the situation is worse as the garbage dump sees frequent fires, especially in the summer.
Twenty-four-year-old Vijay Bharti has grown up in Jahangirpuri’s J-Block, and remembers the Bhalswa landfill as almost “always on fire”. “For the past 10 years, every two to three days we can see fires at the landfill. The garbage dump keeps growing and no one listens to us,” said Mr. Bharti.
Another Jahangirpuri resident, Suresh Singh said she has developed breathing problems. The 60-year-old said apart from the landfill, there was a lack of cleanliness in the area with drains choked and mosquitoes breeding in the filth.
While Delhi’s landfill fires have not become as bad as the blaze at Mumbai’s Deonar dump, locals say for them the situation has been hellish for decades.
The gases from the dump corrode the insides of our appliances. Most of us don’t have ACs because the pipes leak
Manju Raghav,Resident of Ghazipur
The AAP has accused the BJP-ruled civic body of stoking the flames to derail the odd-even scheme
