A day after the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is planning to build 16 new landfill sites in the national capital, the Civic body on Friday termed the claims as baseless saying that there is no such plan and the civic body is working tirelessly to flatten the three existing landfill sites in the city.
Amit Kumar, Director of P&I, said that the Corporation is hellbent on flattening the three landfill sites of the Capital including Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalawa. The allegation leveled against the MCD is totally ‘fake’ there is no such plan to create 16 new landfill sites. “The civic body will lodge the First Information Report (FIR) against the auto drivers with speakers, spreading these rumors,” Kumar said.
While informing about the efforts being made by the Corporation to clear these big landfill sites, Kumar said that the MCD has cleared 77 Lakh metric tonnne of legacy waste from the landfill sites till the date. Nearly 203 Lakh metric tonnne legacy waste is left out of the total 280 Lakh metric tonnne legacy waste, Kumar said in a press conference on Friday. The municipal corporation has installed around 44 trommel machines at three landfill sites. 12 machines have been installed Ghazipur, 18 at Bhalswa and 14 at Okhla Lanfill site.
These machines dispose of nearly 20000 to 22000 metric tonnes of garbage per day, he said. Delhi generates around 11,000 metric tons of garbage, a significant part of which is dumped in three landfill sites — Ghazipur, Bhalswa, and Okhla.
Out of which the MCD is able to treat whopping 75 per cent of the legacy waste which is 8213 tonne per day (TPD) and the 25 per cent that is 2787 has been dumped into the landfill sites, said Kumar.
The Corporation aims to treat 100 per cent legacy waste generated in the national capital per day till August 2025, he stated. He also said that after inauguration of a Waste To Energy (WTE) plant in Tehkhand only 400-500 ton garbage is being dumped in Okhla landfill site, which used to cater 1,700 ton garbage from entire south Delhi earlier.
Kumar also said that at present the height of the Ghazipur landfill is 65 metres --only eight metres less than the height of Qutub Minar.
The height of Bhalswa landfill is 62 metre, while the height of Okhla landfill is 42 metres, he said.
In 2017, a portion of Ghazipur landfill had fallen on an adjacent road in which two people were killed.
Kumar further said that nearly 85 lakh metric ton legacy waste is lying at Ghazipur landfill site, while it is 73 lakh metric ton at Bhalswa, and 45 lakh metric ton at Okhla mound.
He also said that in next one week nearly 40,000 inert material will also be lifted from these three landfill sites which will further help authorities process the legacy waste at these sites.