No more dumping of solid waste will be allowed at east Delhi’s Ghazipur and north Delhi’s Bhalswa landfill, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after meeting met Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal on Saturday.
“It (the garbage) will now be dumped at new sites identified in east and north Delhi," he added.
Earlier in the day, the Raj Niwas had announced the L-G’s decision to ban dumping of solid waste at Ghazipur from Saturday itself and clearing of the landfill in two years. The decision was taken following the collapse of a portion of Ghazipur landfill on Friday in which two persons were killed.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Chief Minister said that he had discussed with the L-G the need to involve scientists, experts and companies in coming up with solutions to reclaim the mountains of trash in the Capital. He said that no other country in the world was disposing garbage in the way Delhi was, calling the landfills an "ancient" method of doing so.
Traffic diversion
The L-G office advised residents on Saturday to use alternate routes and directed the Delhi Traffic Police to ensure proper traffic circulation along the Ghazipur landfill site. Traffic near the landfill was diverted from the adjoining road as an immediate safety measure.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has assured the L-G that it will begin the process of lifting, segregating and processing of the solid waste by November 2017, for its use in road construction,” the Raj Niwas said in a statement. The process has been fast-tracked and the entire landfill site would be cleared within two years, it said further.
Temporary site
The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), which manages the landfill site, will send collected garbage for disposal to some alternative site with immediate effect. As for the garbage which was earlier being dumped at Ghazipur will now be diverted to Ranikhera near Delhi-Haryana border. "The city's garbage, which was being sent to Ghazipur site would now be taken to a temporary site in Ranikhera," said a civic body official.
The L-G, while expressing his condolences to the families of the two persons who lost their lives in the landfill collapse , asked all agencies to be fully prepared to deal with such exigencies and to coordinate so that such unfortunate incidents do not recur. The meeting was attended by Ranbir Singh, commissioner EDMC, R.P. Singh, general manager NHAI, Rajeev Verma, principal commissioner (lands) DDA, and experts in landfill site management. Around 2,500 MT of garbage lifted from east Delhi is dumped each day in the Ghazipur landfill, the oldest in the Capital.
According to officials, the permissible height for a garbage dump is 20 metres. However, the Ghazipur dump was 60 metres high. - inputs from PTI