Ghaziabad: Stretches of National Highway 9 turning into dumping sites, says NHAI

Officials of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board said that they will start levying a penalty against the corporation for open dumping of solid waste if the civic body fails to address the issue as the Graded Response Action Plan is in effect in the district

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has said that several stretches of the National Highway 9 (NH-9) are slowly turning into dumping sites, and blamed the Ghaziabad municipal corporation for the dumping activity. Officials of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) said that they will start levying a penalty against the corporation for open dumping of solid waste if the civic body fails to address the issue as the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) is in effect in the district.

NHAI officials said that they have sent written communications to the district officials and the municipal corporation for the dumping at different underpasses, service roads and side lanes of the highway. (Sakib Ali/HT)

Officials from the NHAI said that they have sent written communications to the district officials and the municipal corporation for the dumping at different underpasses, service roads and side lanes of the highway.

“During a meeting held on Monday, We have intimated the issue to the district officials. The corporation officials were also present in the meeting. The garbage dumps were found near Kala Patthar, Khoda, Behrampur, Bamheta, Rauhl Vihar, Bagu and Mehrauli, among other locations. It has come to our knowledge that corporation staff are indulged in such practices as they do not have sufficient landfill sites,” said Mudit Garg, project director, NHAI.

Garg further said that the NHAI is also facing encroachment issues in the form of shops and unauthorised stands for auto-rickshaws and buses on the highway. “All the issues have been communicated to departments concerned. On our part, we have prepared dozens of flex boards to send out messages that there should be no garbage dumping, no encroachments and no unauthorised stops on the highway. The issues are prevailing in phase 2 of the corridor and the boards will soon be put up at 15 different locations,” Garg added.

The 19.8km phase 2 of NH-9 (including the Delhi-Meerut Expressway) starts from UP Gate and extends up to Dasna.

The Ghaziabad municipal corporation denied any dumping of solid waste at the stretches along the highway, but said that the issue could be related to the old garbage collection centres on the service lanes.

“We have shut down the garbage processing sites near Raj Nagar Extension and also at Muradnagar. So, there is a gap in processing of about 500 metric tonnes of solid waste (out of an estimated 1,200 metric tonnes generated every day). At present, we are focussing on resolving the issues at the Galand landfill site and a boundary wall is being constructed there. We will take the solid waste there for processing,” said MS Tanwar, municipal commissioner.

“As a result of the gap in processing, it may be possible that extra waste from the old garbage collection sites could have spread along the highway. We will get it cleaned up. As regards the garbage reported near Khoda, it is not our jurisdiction area,” Tanwar said.

Meanwhile, the UPPCB officials said that they have clearly directed the agency to not dump garbage in open during the period when Grap is in effect. “Open dumping may result in fire incidents which will impact the air quality. We will start levying penalties against the corporation if it fails to check open dumping of waste in the city,” said Utsav Sharma, regional officer of UPPCB, Ghaziabad.

Ghaziabad traffic police officials said that they have taken up drives to remove encroachments. “We have earlier conducted anti-encroachment drives. We will conduct more drives and deal with squatters strictly,” said Ramanand Kushwaha, superintendent of police (traffic).