With landfill sites filled to capacity, but waste generation increasing daily, municipal agencies are urgently demanding more land. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has now urgently sought allocation of two sites, one at Sultanpur Dabas and another on the G.T. Karnal Road, as its existing landfill site at Bhalswa stands exhausted.
The NDMC has only one sanitary landfill site at Bhalswa near Mukarba Chowk, which is spread over an area of 40 acres. Started in 1994, it is essentially a dumping site and not a secured sanitary landfill site.
The landfill site was exhausted a long time ago, with its height 40 metres above the ground level at present. But it is still in use due to non-availability of an alternative.
The civic body, in an affidavit filed before the National Green Tribunal, said that it has not made much progress in its attempts to get land allotted from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) or the Delhi Government. The NGT is hearing a plea filed by activist advocate Gaurav Bansal against the environmental hazards of over-exploited landfill sites.
In compliance with a Supreme Court order, the DDA had allotted 1,500 acres of land at various locations to the erstwhile MCD for the next 20 years, out of which the NDMC requires about 500 acres. In 2010, a committee constituted by the Delhi High Court recommended 31 sites for solid waste management. Of these, 18 fell under SDMC jurisdiction, eight under the NDMC and five under the EDMC.
“Of the eight sites under the NDMC, two of them — a 95 acres site near Sultanpur Dabas under Gaon Sabha and a 27.5 acre site behind the APMC compost plant on the G.T. Karnal road, which is under private ownership — are best suited for processing/disposal of MSW,” the civic body said and prayed that the same be acquired by the DDA and handed over to it.
By the year 2024, 14,300 MT waste per day would be generated in Delhi, of which the NDMC is expected to collect 5,000 MT.
The agency now proposes to create processing plants, on the lines of one in Burari, at a site near Rani Khera and another at Puth Khurd with 1,000 and 500 TPD capacity.
It also proposes to create composting facilities in a decentralized manner with the compost plant at Bhalswa being closed by the Delhi Pollution Control Board in April 2014 for not following MSW norms. It proposes to bring centralized composting plants at Sultanpur Dabas and Bhaktawarpur Road near Palla village.
Published - August 07, 2015 08:00 am IST
