North Delhi civic body questions quality of recycled materials from C&D plant

The cash-strapped civic body supplies material for maintenance and repair works to its wards through the recycling plant

Members of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation’s standing committee, from both Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), have questioned the poor quality of recycled construction material being received from Jahangirpuri-Burari construction and demolition waste recycling plant for maintenance works in the wards. Councillors from both parties alleged that the usage of “inferior quality” material has damaged drains and inner colony roads.

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste. Jogi Ram Jain, the standing committee chairman, said that the quality of recycled material is inferior to the material available in the market. (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO)

Ajay Sharma, standing committee member from AAP, said, “In my ward, a large number of drains and roads have been repaired using the material supplied from the processing plant, which got washed away during the last monsoon rain. In the end, people blame the councillor for corruption and poor quality while we have no role in the process. We are not permitted to buy from the open market as the corporation has no funds available for fresh material.”

The cash-strapped civic body supplies material for maintenance and repair works to its wards through the recycling plant.

Manish Chaudhary, the BJP councillor from Vijay Vihar and committee member said, “The quality of material being supplied from the C&D plant should be checked as the repair work is getting washed away after barely a few weeks. The material is of questionable quality and it is impacting the image of the municipal corporation.”

Jogi Ram Jain, the standing committee chairman, said that the quality of recycled material is inferior to the material available in the market. “We should try to adjust it in other types of work with increased cement ratio. We should also acknowledge that the debris lying on roads causes dust pollution and the plant operators pick all such construction waste from roads. It is collected recycled and processed to make various types of material tiles, kerbstones and construction dust. The engineering department will pass the orders to junior engineers to look into the matter,” he added.

A senior engineering department official overseeing the operations said that they receive complaints from time to time and will investigate the matter. “The strength of the last few batches will be checked. The recycled material requires more cement. The material supplied from the plant should be used in a 1:3 ratio with the fresh material. If 25% of recycled material is used, 75% fresh material should be used. Instructions will be issued to junior engineers to increase the quantity of cement.”

The north corporation’s plant processes 2,000TPD (tonnes per day) of C&D waste into aggregates that are converted to ready-mix concrete, cement bricks, hollow bricks, pavement blocks, kerbstones, concrete bricks and manufactured sand, thereby reducing the consumption of fresh stones and sand and mitigating pollution arising in the process. Over 1.6 million recycled concrete blocks from the plant were used in the new Supreme Court annexe building.

Delhi has five local bodies and it is estimated that the city generates over 3,712 tonnes of construction waste every day. Delhi has four operational C&D waste processing facilities at Jahangirpuri-Burari, Shashtri Park, Mundka and Bakkarwala with a cumulative capacity to handle 4,150 tonnes of demolition waste. A total of 212 designated dumping sites have been fixed by the local bodies but violations related to illegal dumping continue to take place, say authorities.