A day after being pulled up by the Supreme Court for not doing enough to dispose of the huge quantity of garbage in the national Capital, the Delhi Government on Saturday formed a three-member committee which will submit a report on solid waste management by November 10. The decision to form the committee, which will be headed by Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain, was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at his official residence.
The committee will consider ways to tackle air pollution at the earliest and will start implementing concrete measures as soon as possible. The committee will also apprise the Supreme Court in case it faces any hurdle in meeting the challenge of solid waste management.
After the Cabinet meeting, Kejriwal announced the formation of a three-member Ministerial committee to look into the matter of garbage disposal in the capital.
“So, a three-member ministerial committee — comprising Jain, Environment Minister Imran Hussain and Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra — has been formed,” said Kejriwal at a Press conference. The committee will speak to all stakeholders, including Commissioners of the three municipal corporations, on solid waste management, garbage management, garbage disposal, and will submit a report to the Delhi Government by November 10, he added.
Earlier, in the Cabinet meeting, the issue and observation made by the Supreme Court pertaining to garbage cleaning were discussed at length.
The Chief Minister said the Government has taken the apex court’s observation as an “opportunity” and will apprise it of the difficulties the city administration is facing on garbage disposal.
“The Supreme Court made an observation regarding garbage collection and garbage disposal. Though this is not the responsibility of the Delhi Government, but the Municipal Corporations, we look at this as an opportunity on Friday.
If the Supreme Court is monitoring the situation, it will help in removing obstacles,” said Kejriwal. “Action will be implemented thereafter and any hindrances will be reported to the Supreme Court from time to time,” he added.
Meanwhile, leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly and senior BJP leader Vijender Gupta asked the CM to stop blaming others for everything and direct all his MlAs to work for development of Delhi.
Terming Delhi’s garbage disposal problem as alarming, the Supreme Court on Friday pulled up the Delhi government. The apex court expressed serious concerns regarding over garbage piling up at landfill sites in the national Capital.
“Forty-five metres of the height of garbage in places are alarming,” said a division bench of the SC, headed by Justice Madan lokur said. “It’s a bully who blames others for problems. Don’t say MlAs have no responsibility in keeping the city clean. You have a large number of MlAs and you must ask them to spread awareness about keeping the city clean,” added the SC.
“What are your plans to clear garbageIJ” the court asked the Government. “You have to plan for the future. You don’t have to react to a situation.”
The apex court had earlier taken suo motu cognizance of the death of a seven-year-old boy, Avinash Rout, due to dengue last year after being allegedly denied treatment by five private hospitals and the subsequent suicide by his parents.
The court also noted that the garbage in the city can spread other diseases, including bird flu. The Delhi zoo has been recently shut down indefinitely after bird flu led to deaths of several migratory birds.
Delhi generates over 9,000 metric tonnes of garbage daily. It is dumped in these four landfill sites that extend over 164 acres, when the current requirement is nearly four times the available area - 650 acres, according to a 2011 report by the Central Pollution Control Board.
Of the four landfill sites, three operate beyond capacity. While the permissible upper limit for dumping garbage at a landfill is approximately 15 to 20 metres, the sites at Okhla, Ghazipur and Bhalswa are past 40 metres.
The Ghazipur landfill in east Delhi, the oldest functional landfill in the city, was started in 1984. Spread across 70 acres, the landfill contains at least 12 million tonnes of waste. The landfill is now estimated to be at least 50 feet tall. It overshot its limit of 15 feet in 2002, but in the absence of an alternative site, the landfill continues to function.
The 40 acre-wide trash mountain at Bhalswa, clearly visible from the arterial GT Karnal Road, receives about 2,700 tonnes of garbage per day. It caters to no less than 50 per cent of Delhi’s population, including Civil lines, Jahangirpuri, Model Town, Kirti Nagar and even old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk.
There are over 45,000 sanitation employees in the Capital. Due to garbage dumped at the road side, dengue and chickungunya spread in the national Capital, causing death of several people. The garbage at road also leads to traffic jam in east and outer Delhi.