Bhalswa Sanitary Landfill to be cleared by March next year: CM Kejriwal

Speaking to media persons after the inspection, CM Kejriwal said, "it was after the 2019 order of the NGT that work began to remove waste from this landfill site.

New Delhi [India], March 16 (ANI ): Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led an on-ground inspection of the Bhalswa Sanitary Landfill on Thursday. After his inspection, the CM expressed satisfaction with the speed at which the work was going on to clear the legacy waste piled up at the site. The CM was accompanied by Delhi Government's Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj, MCD's Mayor Shelly Oberoi, Deputy Mayor Aaley Mohammad Iqbal and senior officers of concerned departments. Upon his arrival at the site, the CM reviewed the process of Bio-Mining and Bio-Remediation of legacy waste at the landfill.

He took note of the data regarding the functioning of the landfill and the timelines of garbage processing operations. After this, the CM walked up to the landfill and observed the ground situation of the garbage mounds. He also talked to the officials present there to understand day to day work of the site. Notably, the Bhalswa Sanitary Landfill is a 28-year-old site, spread across 70 acres. The landfill is one of the three infamous garbage mountains of Delhi. The initial height of the landfill was 65 metres from ground level. When surveyed in 2019, it consisted of 80 Lakh MT of legacy waste. Since then 24 Lakh MT of fresh waste has been dumped at the site and 30.48 Lakh MT of waste has been bio-mined there.

Speaking to media persons after the inspection, CM Kejriwal said, "It was after the 2019 order of the NGT that work began to remove waste from this landfill site. At that time there were around 80 lakh metric tons of waste. From 2019 until now, around 30 lakh metric tons of waste has been removed from this site and at present, it holds around 50 lakh metric tons of waste." "Over the last two and a half years or so, 30 lakh metric tons of waste has been removed from here, but the MCD now under the Aam Aadmi Party will work even faster and we are targeting to remove another 30 lahks metric tons of waste by December this year. The final target of the state government is to remove the entire 50 lakhs metric ton of waste that is remaining at the site by March of next year."

Informing the media that work has been ongoing at double the speed, he said that, "The initial target was to remove 6500 metric tonnes of waste per day, but yesterday 9000 MT was removed. By the end of this month, 12000 MT of waste will be removed every day. With the speed at which the work was going on here at Bhalswa landfill site, the area would be cleared of all the garbage by March 2024." Providing details about the waste generation in Delhi, he said that, "Around 11,000 MT of waste is generated every single day in the city. Of this around 8100 MT is cleared off on a daily basis through waste-to-energy and other modes of segregation. There is a deficit of around 2800 MT every day. For this purpose, in Okhla, the process is underway to dispose of an additional 1000 MT every day. For the remaining waste to be processed a plant will come up in Bawana by 2026 and it will have a capacity of 2000 MT. Until then, the government has made temporary arrangements to clear off 2000 MT of waste over here at Bhalswa itself. On a daily basis, by the end of this month, around 10,000 MT of legacy waste and around 2000 MT of daily waste will be cleared off."

Replying to a media query on waste segregation, the Delhi CM highlighted that segregation of waste is important and urged the residents to try and segregate waste at the source, i.e. in their households. However, he also added that it is difficult to overnight change the habits of residents of the city, and added that the waste was being segregated after being picked up from the households. He also said that in most of the waste-to-energy plants, segregation of waste is not necessary anymore. (ANI)

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