More than six years after a fire at the Bandhwari landfill site off the Gurugram-Faridabad road led to the shutting down of the treatment plant here, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram has failed to find a tangible solution to solid municipal waste management in the Millennium City.
Despite the civic body having tried different models and agencies over the years, the mountain of untreated garbage continues to build up, posing a serious threat to the environment and the health of the residents.
Untreated waste
Every day around 2,000 tonnes of solid municipal waste — 1,200 tonnes from Gurugram and 800 tonnes from Faridabad — is being added to the Bandhwari landfill site, which already has around 35 lakh tonnes of untreated waste. Ecogreen Energy Private Limited, the agency hired for waste treatment in the city, manages to handle just 500 tonnes per day.
Hired in August 2017, Ecogreen Energy is bound by an agreement with the MCG to set up a Waste-to-Energy (WTE) plant at the landfill site within two years, generating power from the solid municipal waste. The project, however, is yet to take off because of the failure of the civic body to procure the mandatory environmental clearance certificate.
Environmental clearance
Stressing that the delay in getting the environmental clearance was the root cause of the ever burgeoning mountain of garbage, Chief Operational Officer, Ecogreen Energy, Gaurav Joshi said since the site for the WTE plant fell within 10 km radius of Asola wildlife sanctuary in Delhi, the clearance certificate from the National Board of Wildlife was mandatory before they could start the work on it.
“It will take at least 18 months after the certificate to construct and make the WTE plant functional. Till the time the plant becomes operational, there is little that can be done to deal with the waste adding to this heap every day,” said Mr. Joshi.
When contacted, MCG Commissioner Yashpal Yadav maintained that the clearance was to be given by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and it had supported the plan actively. He added that the clearance was expected before June.
Besides the blame game over the environmental clearance, the two agencies also traded charges over delay in payments, segregation of waste at source and lack of cooperation from the residents.
Mr. Joshi claimed that more than ₹19 crore was pending as tipping fee arrears towards the MCG, making it difficult to run daily operations, and the recovery of user charges from the residents too was just around 10%, indicating a lack of coordination between the two agencies.
“The MCG pays us just ₹670 for every ₹1,000 bill raised,” said Mr. Joshi.
He also accused the MCG of failing to ensure segregation of waste at source, as per the Solid Waste Management Rules (SWM), 2016 regulations, and pointed out lack of space at the landfill site as another challenge for the agency to efficiently run its operations.
Vehemently denying all charges, Mr. Yadav said that the MCG made the payments on time and “not a single penny” was pending. He said the MCG had supported Ecogreen Energy over non-payment by the residents, but people were paying the charges where they were satisfied with the services. Mr. Yadav blamed Ecogreen Energy over non-segregation of waste at source saying the agency did not have separate compartments for it in all its vehicles yet.
Groundwater pollution
Amid all this, the contamination of groundwater in the area around the landfill site due to leachate from the garbage has emerged as a serious threat to the residents and the environment. Taking a serious view of the matter, the NGT, in its order in April, directed the MCG and Ecogreen Energy to take immediate measures to tackle the problem. Digging of leachate collection ponds, leachate spraying and reshaping of the garbage hill are among some of the measures at different stages to deal with the menace.
Running the ‘Why Waste Your Waste’ campaign for past several years, Ruchika Sethi, a citizen volunteer, said that waste generator was pivotal to any solution to manage waste and stressed the need for a legal framework to effectively address the issue.
“Scientific waste management begins with well-established responsibility of each and every waste generator. The bulk of Gurugram residents do not know the SWM policy when the global crisis of climate change is begging a paradigm shift from waste management to resource management,” said Ms. Sethi, adding: “To enable this, waste must be segregated at home. It starts from our homes, the way we dispose our waste. Also, there is a lack of legislative support and political will to effectively implement and enforce the 'SWM Rules of 2016'. The MCG has till date not formulated the by-laws with respect to the government of India’s Rules of 2016 on SWM, plastic, construction and demolition waste and e-waste.”
