A day after Delhi’s Environment Minister Gopal Rai asked the anti-pollution body to probe the fire at the Bhalswa landfill and submit a report within 24 hours, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) on Thursday slapped a fine of Rs 50 lakh on North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) for being negligent and not taking proper steps to prevent the blaze.
Meanwhile, the firefighters struggled to douse fire at landfill for third straight day on Thursday, with fire officials saying that it would take at least another day to put it out completely. Local residents said on Wednesday that thick, noxious smoke was choking them. "Currently, four fire tenders are working at site. It will take at least one more day to douse fire. Our teams are working round-the-clock to put it out," a fire official said. "The residents have started complaining of sore throat, itchy eyes and breathing problems," the official said. According to an official, “The NMC did not take proper steps to prevent and contain fire. As per standard operating procedure, the MCD should have kept water tankers on standby to deal with such a situation.” The fire started in a small area on Tuesday, but it spread due to negligence of civic officials and engulfed entire mountain of garbage, he said. Rai on Wednesday said Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled municipal corporations should have used bulldozer to clear mountains of garbage in Delhi and that repeated incidents of fire at landfills in Capital are a result of corruption in the civic bodies.
On April 21, Rai had said the Delhi Government would study a system installed in Mumbai to capture methane from the rotting waste and replicate it in the national Capital to prevent fires at landfills. The Ghazipur landfill has seen three such fires since March 28. The wet waste dumped in a landfill produces methane when it rots. In hot weather conditions, methane catches fire spontaneously and the blaze spreads as it feeds on combustible material such as textiles and plastics.