It was Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s mission to clean up the three mountains of garbage around Delhi. It is also one of the key promises that propelled the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to come to power at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
Keeping with his party’s promise, CM Kejriwal on Thursday, March 16, expressed confidence that the Bhalswa Sanitary Landfill will be cleared of all the garbage by March 2024.
CM Kejriwal’s comments came following an on-ground inspection of the landfill site on Thursday. After his inspection, the CM expressed satisfaction with the speed at which the work was going on to clear the waste piling up at the site.
The CM was informed by the officials that, against the initial target to remove 6500 metric tonnes of waste per day, soon 12000 MT of waste will be removed every day.
The CM was accompanied by the Delhi Government’s Urban Development minister Saurabh Bhardwaj, MCD’s Mayor Dr Shelly Oberoi, Deputy Mayor Aaley Mohammad Iqbal and senior officers of concerned departments.
CM Kejriwal reviewed the process of biomining and bioremediation 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.
CM Kejriwal also walked up to the landfill and observed the ground situation of the garbage mounds. He also talked to the officials present there to understand the day to day work of the site.
Bhalswa Sanitary Landfill is a 28-year-old site, spread across 70 acres. The landfill is one of the three infamous garbage mountains in Delhi. The initial height of the landfill was 65 metres above ground level. When surveyed in 2019, it consisted of 80 lakh MT of legacy waste. Since then, 24 lakh MT of fresh waste have been dumped at the site and 30.48 lakh MT of waste have been biomined there.
CM Kejriwal said that 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 have 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 have been removed from here, but the MCD is targeting to remove another 30 lakh metric tons of waste by December this year,” CM Kejriwal said.
The Delhi CM added that the final target of the state government is to remove the entire 50 lakh metric tonnes of waste that is remaining at the site by March of next year.
Providing details about the waste generation in Delhi, CM Kejriwal said that around 11,000 MT of waste is generated every single day in the city. “Of this, around 8100 MT is cleared off the ground daily 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,” he added.
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. “Daily, by the end of this month, around 10,000 MT of legacy waste and around 2000 MT of daily waste will be cleared off,” CM Kejriwal said.