The Hindu 22.05.2013
Panel set up to locate land for dumping sites
Delhi High Court to take up the matter for further hearing on July 5.
Pulling up the Delhi Development Authority for not meeting the Supreme Court deadline for making available landfill sites within three months of the order to the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday formed a multi-member committee for identifying land and transferring them to the civic bodies for new garbage dumping sites.
The committee will be headed by the Principal Secretary, Urban Development Department of the Delhi Government, and the DDA Vice-Chairman, a representative of the Land and Building Department of the Delhi Government and the three Municipal Commissioners will be its members.
The Court will take up the matter for further hearing on July 5.
The three municipal corporations for the moment have demanded 600 acres for new garbage dumping sites. Counsel for the three municipal bodies, Sumeet Pushkarna, submitted before the Court that as of now around 50 per cent of the garbage generated in the Capital every day was being processed.
He further submitted that there will come a time when the civic bodies would not require very many landfill sites for dumping garbage as there were plans to send most of the garbage to processing plants. He said only the inert garbage would be dumped in landfill sites close to densely populated areas.
According to Mr. Pushkarna, the DDA has so far made available only 150 acres to the civic bodies for new landfill sites while the Delhi Master Plan-2021 provides for 1,500 acres for it.
The Supreme Court had in 2010 directed the DDA to make land available to the local bodies within three months so that they could shift dumping of garbage from the existing saturated landfill sites.
In March this year, the civic bodies had informed the Court that the situation had reached such a point that with each passing day they were finding it increasingly difficult to operate the present landfill sites. However, they said, since there was no other option, they had been forced to continue to use these sites.
The Delhi Pollution Control Committee has already banned dumping of garbage at three of the four existing dumping sites. But the three municipal bodies continue to dump garbage at the Bhalaswa, Ghazipur, Okhla and Narela-Bawana sites.
