Environment new issue on candidates’ agendas

Even as the campaigning process for the MCD elections is drawing to a close, candidates are throwing up innovative issues for voters to consider. And one of the popular one among these is the cause of the environment.

Even as the campaigning process for the MCD elections is drawing to a close, candidates are throwing up innovative issues for voters to consider. And one of the popular one among these is the cause of the environment.

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Meera Singh, who is contesting from Sukhdev Vihar as a Samajwadi Party candidate, has put environment at the top of her agenda list.

For Singh and her party, it is the concerns of the residents living around Okhla, Ghazipur and Narela-Bawana’s incinerator plant that have given them this cause.

“Areas around places that have incinerators are gradually becoming uninhabitable. It is causing large-scale health problems for residents, but no one is taking any action. We are pitching for an alternative and we have Mulayam Singhji’s full support for this,” said Pardeep Kumar, a Samajwadi Party worker.

It is, however, not just Okhla’s incinerator near its sewage treatment plant that has people worried. Incinerators that burn solid waste in other parts of the city such as Ghazipur and Narela-Bawana also have experts worried.

“These incinerators are not environment friendly. As per the planning commission report, Indian urban solid waste is not suitable for combustion. This only adds to the health problems that people face,” said SS Khanna, ex-advisor, Planning Commission.