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No dump yard for a city of 2 million
The stink that is destroying Gurgaon’s reputation comes from the fact that very few did very little for the basic needs of the township — a garbage disposal system among them.
The stink that is destroying Gurgaon’s reputation comes from the fact that very few did very little for the basic needs of the township — a garbage disposal system among them.
The civic authorities say they do not have a garbage disposal facility — not even after 30 years of urbanization. So they do the next best thing: keep dumping in a place till it raises a stink. And then search for another empty land.
If garbage dumping at some place has earned them the residents’ wrath, it has angered forest officials at another. The authorities have even been dragged to the environment courts for destroying the Aravali greens.
All this is happening in what is supposed to be world-class township of two million people. It generates 400 metric tonnes of solid waste every single day.
And it’s happening despite the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) collecting more than Rs 3,000 crore from developers in the name of providing basic infrastructure between 1978 and 2005.
HUDA’s Noida head G Anupama said for the past three years a piece of land along the Gurgaon-Faridabad road near the DLF City was being used for dumping. And now another site six km away is being used. All of it because of delay in construction of a solid waste treatment plant in Bandwari village, planned two years ago.
Forest officials said dumping the reserved forest area is “downright illegal”. “It is destroying the green cover of the area,” said RP Balwan, conservator of forests, Gurgaon range.
