Rules flouted, waste burnt in open

Despite directions from the district administration, horticulture and municipal solid waste are still being dumped and burnt in the open at several points across the city, causing health and environmental hazards.

More than a month after senior Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) and the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) officials issued directions “to ensure that no MSW or horticulture waste be disposed in open area and burnt by any agency as this leads to serious health consequences and also violates environmental/municipal laws”, several contractors in HUDA sectors, licensed colonies and industrial areas are openly flouting the directions.

“The dumping and burning of waste in an open plot in Sector 23 is a regular feature. When we approached the

safai karamcharis with the order, they told us that they did not have enough hand carts to take the waste to the dumping site. We even contacted HUDA officials, but in vain,” said Sector 23 RWA general-secretary Bhawani Shankar Tripathi.

Similarly, Sunit said that a vacated plot in Udyog Vihar Phase-IV was converted into an illegal dumping site and “no mechanism was in place to penalise defaulters who were actively burning household waste in broad daylight.”

Another large illegal dumping ground, almost a mini landfill site, has come up just across the road from Nirvana Country boundary on the Golf Course Extension road. Similar illegal dumping and burning sites have mushroomed across the city in MCG, HUDA and licensed areas and most of the burning is done at night to evade action from the authorities, the locals said.

HUDA administrator Ashok Sangwan could not be contacted despite several attempts.