Delhi’s rly stations worst at waste disposal

Delhi’s three railways stations are among the worst public places in the city when it comes to arrangements for waste disposal, says the country’s pollution watchdog, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

Updated on: Mar 3, 2010, 23:54:01 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Delhi’s three railways stations are among the worst public places in the city when it comes to arrangements for waste disposal, says the country’s pollution watchdog, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

In a comparative environmental study of railway stations and airports in the city — which will be hosting the Commonwealth Games in October — the CPCB found there is no provision of segregation of degradable and non-degradable waste at the three railway stations.

Every day 522 trains carrying over 7.50 lakh people arrive at or leave the three stations — New Delhi, Old Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin — resulting in the generation of 6,758 kg of plastic. That is 20 per cent of total municipal waste generated at the stations.

On average, the municipal waste in the Capital has five per cent plastic.

SP Gautam, CPCB chairperson, said: “While the value added plastic is collected by rag-pickers, the non-recyclable plastic carry bags are left at the site. These end up in municipal landfill sites.”

Delhi has banned use of plastic in the city but the study shows that its use is still rampant at the railway stations. CPCB has suggested restriction on use of plastic and entry of rag pickers at railway stations. It also wants separate bins for biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste.

Delhi’s two airports may be better in municipal waste management than rail stations but what has worried CPCB is high generation of plastic. The per capita generation of plastic at the international and domestic airports is 69 grams as compared to just nine at the railway stations.

The CPCB wants the government to impose restriction on use of plastic by air caterers, its biggest source at the airports. It has also asked airport authorities to use plastic in road construction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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