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The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is unlikely to clear the Okhla Sanitary Landfill (SLF) by the end of this year, a senior civic official said.
“While work on flattening the landfill is likely to stretch beyond this year, a significant quantum of waste will be cleared from both the landfills by the year-end,” the official added.
The MCD had, in a press conference in October last year, announced that it would clear the Okhla landfill by December 2023.
In March this year, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Okhla and Bhalswa SLFs will be cleared by December 2023 and March 2024, respectively. Flattening the city’s three landfills featured at the top of the “10 guarantees” made by AAP in its manifesto for the civic elections. The party went on to win the polls in December 2022, securing 134 of the 250 wards in the city.
According to the data provided by the official (till April 4), the Okhla and Bhalswa SLFs house 42 lakh tonnes and 71 lakh tonnes of legacy waste, respectively, while the Ghazipur SLF has 78 lakh tonnes of legacy waste.
“In Okhla and Bhalswa, an average of two lakh tonnes of waste is processed monthly. At this rate, we will see a substantial difference in the two landfills by December,” the official said, adding that the monsoon could cause some delay in waste processing.
Last week, Mr. Kejriwal, in a review meeting with senior civic officials, noted that the MCD had not increased the waste processing capacity at Okhla to the desired limit of 10,000 tonnes daily.
The senior official said the civic body had issued a show-cause notice to the contractor engaged at the Ghazipur SLF due to the slow pace of work. The CM has directed officials to terminate the agency’s services if it doesn’t show any improvement.
