MCD seeks land in four Narela, Najafgarh villages for new garbage processing sites

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi wrote to DDA on September 16 and 28 to seek land in four villages in outer Delhi

As space runs out for tonnes of untreated garbage piling up at the city’s oversaturated landfill sites, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has asked the Delhi Development Authority to allot land parcels for garbage-processing plants in four villages in Narela and Najafgarh.

A view of the site where a bamboo garden was planted covered with garbage near the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi. (Hindustan Times)

A senior municipal official said the corporation has identified land parcels in Ghummanhera and Kharkhari Nahar villages under the Najafgarh zone, and in Rani Khera and Sultanpur Dabas villages in the Narela zone.

The civic body wrote to DDA on September 16 and 28 in this context, the official said.

The request comes against the backdrop of the corporation’s assessment that it processes only 57% of the 13,500 tonnes generated daily in the city. The remaining 43%, about 5,800 tonnes, remains unprocessed and ends up at its already oversaturated landfill sites.

The Master Plan of Delhi (2047) and MCD’s future projections show that Delhi’s waste generation is expected to exceed 25,000 tonnes by 2047.

Several plans to set up waste processing facilities have run into opposition from residents who do not want such sites in their neighbourhood. Last year, Delhi saw protests from 17 villages when a site in Narela-Bawana was earmarked for Delhi’s largest waste-to-energy plant.

“In the long term, we plan to increase the waste processing capacity to 15,792 tonnes per day (TPD). Land shortage in Delhi for waste processing is a major hurdle,” the official said.

Environmental experts have long urged city planners to move away from centralised incineration towards localised waste segregation and organic composting. But the local authorities remain reliant on waste-to-energy plants.

Delhi currently operates four waste-to-energy (WTE) plants with a combined capacity of 6,550 TPD. However, modernising the infrastructure has faced hurdles: a 200 TPD composting plant at Okhla has been closed for years due to delays in upgrading it to a Bio-CNG facility. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) recently reprimanded the MCD over operational issues at the 12-megawatt, 1,300 TPD WTE plant at Ghazipur, citing frequent maintenance breakdowns.