City garbage crisis unabated

By 
CHANDAN PRAKASH

The systematic failure of municipal Corporations to develop a mechanism to dispose and process the amass garbage produced in the national Capital is posing a serious question over the intention of the civic body to elucidate the matter.

The apathy has left the people at the mercy of God. Scarcities of landfill site to dump the daily waste and due to meagerness in managing solid waste have resulted in piles of garbage lying all around in the city. Thousands of tonnes of garbage are still being dumped at the already exhausted landfill sites at Bhalswa, Okhla and Ghazipur. Besides, the garbage mountain has taken several lives in an assorted escapade of fire and precipitous crumbling.

Bhalswa landfill site being managed by NMC

The ignorance is having potential health hazards for those living around these sites and being rewards in the form of Cholera, Jaundice, TB, infertility, asphyxiation deaths and other skin diseases.

The main muddle is that the city is being run by the multiple authorities, resulting in delaying in lots of projects and facilities of public importance. It seems that the crisis is unabated as there is no political will to take a stride. Further, it is cardinal to understand the political differences as the city is being ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party and all the three Corporations are being managed by the Bhartiya Janta Party, leading to an uninterrupted tussle between them. The federal system here seems to be unfit as continuing power scuffle has stalled the development of the national Capital.

However, it will be difficult to come out with a solution without developing a proper infrastructure to manage the waste and it needs a strong engrossment to work out the solution.

The never-ending crisis may create further embarrassment for the government in Delhi and the BJP which is ruling municipal Corporations for the three consecutive terms.

The three municipal corporations appear to be losing out miserably in the overall ratings for the cleanest cities of India under the Swachchh Bharat Mission-2018 as no appropriate measures have been taken to get rid of solid waste generated.

For children of ragpickers, garbage is gold. 

However, South Delhi Municipal Corporation has claimed to be garbage free after proposing waste to energy plant at Tehkhand where 1,200 metric tonne of waste would be utilised to generate 15 megawatt powers. SDMC generates approximately 4,000 MT tonne waste per day, out of which 2,000 MT of waste is already being processed at Okhla energy plant. The remaining waste is proposed to be processed at Tehkhand energy plant.

According to the estimates, Delhi produces over 9,500 tonnes per day (TPD) of solid waste, but all three of its dumping grounds, with a collective capacity of 4,600 MTD are operating beyond their saturation point and also posing “risk to human lives’. In addition, it is expected that the national Capital will need an additional area of 28 square km till 2020 to dump 15,000 tonnes of garbage daily.

However, all the three landfill sites in Delhi has reached a saturation point (50 meter while 20 meter allowed) almost 10 years ago but still ignoring hazards, authorities kept a blind eye, resulting in recent tragedy at Ghazipur landfill site.

Meanwhile, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation’s step to join hands with the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) to find a solution in disposing of the mammoth garbage.

Thousands of trucks loaded with garbage dumped here

The city has three waste-to-energy plants at Okhla, Ghazipur and Narela Bawana to process waste into energy. Together they have the capacity to process around 4,000 MTD. North Delhi Municipal Corporation is collecting 3,900 MT ‘Municipal Solid Waste’ per day of which Narela-Bawana waste to energy plant is utilising 2000 MT for generating 24 MW of electricity. The crisis is still remaining unsolved due to an alternative site to dump the waste.

It is notable that in Swachh Survekshan-2017, some 434 cities were surveyed. North, East and South MCDs ranked 279, 202 and 196 respectively. During the ‘Swachh Survekshan-2016’, the three corporations also scored poorly as south, north MCDs and east Corporations were ranked 39, 43 and 52nd out of 73 cities surveyed for cleanliness in India.