“Convene meeting with civic bodies on three landfill sites”

With landfill sites under all the three municipal corporations being used, despite having reached saturation long ago, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday directed the Chief Secretary of Delhi to convene a meeting to find a solution.

A Bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar asked the Chief Secretary to convene a meeting with the municipal corporations and other agencies concerned.

Further, the tribunal directed the Delhi government to consider waste to energy plants and disposal of solid waste in the Capital.

Meanwhile, the municipal corporations told the tribunal that earlier the Delhi government had said it would give them some land for waste management at Sultanpur Dabas, but now it has gone back on its word and asked them to approach the DDA even as the land is under the Delhi government.

The direction comes on a petition filed by an NGO, which stated that the three landfill sites - Bhalswa, Gazipur and Okhla - are saturated and are still being used for waste disposal.

Bhalswa landfill site was commissioned in 1994, Ghazipur in 1984, and Okhla in 1996. None of the sites is designed as per the municipal solid waste rules.

The three corporations have also stated in their affidavits before the NGT that the three sites are being used at the risk of threat to human health. Delhi generates over 8,600 metric tonnes of waste a day.

None of these sites have been granted the mandatory authorisation by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee.

The Delhi Pollution Control Board also filed a report stating that the three landfill sites are causing air and water pollution.

The corporations told the tribunal that earlier the Delhi government had said it would give them some land for waste management at Sultanpur Dabas, but now it has asked them to approach the DDA