Following the death of two people in the garbage landslide at the Ghazipur landfill site last week, the Delhi administration has finally got the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on board to use segregated garbage in road construction and the plan has been finalised to take off in November.
Various experts were also roped in to find ways to segregate and utilise the 130 lakh tonne of garbage gathered at landfill sites in the national Capital. lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday discussed solutions for Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla landfill sites with experts from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and other stakeholders in the industry. The plan, formulated and devised in April, to use garbage in building new roads and expansion of roads for connecting national highways and rural areas of Delhi is set to finally take off without any cap on funds.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the EDMC, Union Ministries of Urban Development, Road Transport and Highways, and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Thursday.
“Discussed solutions for Ghazipur,Bhalswa & Okhla landfills with experts from IIT-D & industry.CM @ArvindKejriwal & Minister(UD) also present (SIC),” Baijal tweeted. “Segregation and utilisation of garbage in NHAI project from Ghazipur mound and greening of mounds at Bhalswa and Okhla after grading their slopes,” he added in a series of Tweets.
Official privy to the meeting told The Pioneer that the NHAI has taken up the responsibility to use the entire segregated garbage at the Ghazipur landfill site without any limit as a condition.
Earlier, the NHAI had come forward to use the garbage for the 2-km stretch of the Delhi-Meerut highway. However, the authority had reservations about the cost of the whole exercise.
According an expert, roads, particularly green-field expressways, require massive quantity of soil or base material as they are built on embankments. NHAI has now decided to undertake the development of Meerut expressway from Dasna in Ghaziabad on this new alignment. Most of the Eastern peripheral Expressway (EPE) is being built on embankment, which needs high volume of base material.
An official of East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) said that the garbage after leaving unattended for five years turns to soil like substance. All the municipal solid waste contains about 65 to 70 per cent of soil components which can be reused in embankment construction after segregation from the municipal solid waste.
He further said Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)'s Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) conducted a study by collecting 70 tonnes of five, ten and 15-year-old municipal solid waste from different locations of Ghazipur landfill site and found that it had soil components which can be used in road construction.
“This time no limit of kilometres has been chalked down by the authorities while the main focus of the NHAI is to get the city rid of this garbage mess. Money and contractor would have been the possible hindrance but the authority has plans to work it out. It is not going to be a pilot project but a project as a whole. The inception would start with segregating the garbage,” added the official.
In deliberations about the mounds at Bhalswa and Okhla landfill sites, it was decided to undertake their greening after grading their slopes in an engineered manner. The work at all the three sites shall be under the guidance of the experts to take care of any contingencies and long-term effects.
The DJB CEO said the lt-Governor about possible solutions for more efficient forms of disposal of silt by stocking it in geo-tubes and de-watering the same along the banks of the existing major drains.
Baijal directed the DJB CEO to undertake consultations with NEERI and other experts on this front too and come up with firm proposals. Finally, as regards the current flow of the daily waste being generated in the city, the recent directions of the l-G were reiterated for full utilisation of the existing capacity and addition in the installed capacity of the waste-to-energy plants at Ghazipur, Okhla and Narela-Bawana.
At around 50 metres, the height of garbage heaped at the Ghazipur landfill site in Delhi is barely 20 metres short of Qutub Minar, the world's tallest brick minaret. Commissioned in 1984, it has long outlived its utility but continues to take in over 2,500 MTD (metric tonnes daily) of garbage from East Delhi Municipal Corporation areas every day. The facts are ominous, Delhi produces over 8,500 MTD of solid waste, but all three of its dumping grounds, with a collective capacity of 4,600 MTD are operating beyond their saturation point, at the “risk of human lives”, according to official documents.
According to the DPCC, the waste produced by the civic bodies is as follows: North corporation: 3,100 MTD, South: 2,700 MTD, East: 2,200 MTD, New Delhi Municipal Council 300 MTD and Delhi Cantonment Board 70 MTD. But what is alarming is that waste generation is expected to go up to 15,000 MTD by 2020, according to the economic survey report.