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Assembly panel asks civic bodies to submit plan on reducing height of Ghazipur, Bhalswa landfills
New Delhi: Senior AAP leader and chairperson of Delhi Assembly’s environment committee Atishi on Wednesday asked the North and East Delhi municipal corporations
New Delhi: Senior AAP leader and chairperson of Delhi Assembly’s environment committee Atishi on Wednesday asked the North and East Delhi municipal corporations to submit detailed plans and timelines to reduce the height of the Ghazipur and Bhalswa landfills.
“The height of the two landfills has not been reduced over the years. Besides, frequent fires have been contributing to high air pollution levels in Delhi. The corporations must list out what steps they have taken to reduce the height of the landfills and control the fires raging there,” said Atishi in a statement.
The environment committee had summoned the municipal commissioners of the two corporations after a fire broke out at the Ghazipur landfill on November 25. Three days later, another fire was reported from the Bhalswa landfill site.While the two commissioners are infected with Covid-19, they were represented by Brijesh Singh, additional commissioner, EDMC; Pradeep Khandelwal, chief engineer, EDMC and Nourang Singh, chief engineer, North corporation during the meeting.
“At the rate the work is going on at present, it will take 25 years to tackle the Ghazipur landfill alone,” said Atishi.
The committee has asked the civic officials to submit plans with timelines to bring landfills to ground level by Monday. “You said the garbage dumps are self-combustible. Give timelines and plans to confirm when you can reduce the height of the existing landfill sites to zero,” she said.
Also, the committee has asked them to submit a report on the action taken against the engineers on duty, when the fires occurred, over the last five years. Besides, the civic bodies have also been asked to give a report on the expenses in the last five years on waste management, the bidding process, and the name of these agencies involved.
The two landfills, rising beyond the permissible limit of 20 metres, have exhausted their lifespan years ago.
A senior East Corporation official, who did not wish to be named, said, “We will be submitting our plans by next week.” Despite repeated attempts, officials in the North corporation could not be reached for a comment.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that BJP is not opposed to formation and abeyance to time line for solving issues but the way Delhi Assembly’s Environment Committee head Atishi has started handling MCDs landfill sites cases smacks of political vendetta.
“Atishi and her party comrades are unable to digest how East Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir and EDMC’s efforts to reduce height of Ghazipur landfill site are showing positive results. The sudden activism by Atishi is politically intended just to divert EDMC attention from ground level performance to replying to her queries and BJP strongly condemns this,” Kapoor said.
