From a distance, Delhi’s three landfills could be mistaken for small hills. With piles of garbage rising over a hundred feet, the landfills are fertile ground for the breeding of mosquitoes, flies, rats, cockroaches, and other pests. The smell is unbearable for those living near the city’s garbage dumps.

While the Delhi government has promised to empty out the landfill sites in the city, not much has been done so far.

During a visit to the Bhalswa landfill, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the Aam Aadmi Party-led government will remove 50 lakh metric tonnes of garbage from the site by next year. He was accompanied by Delhi Mayor AAP’s Shelly Oberoi.

“The target is to remove 50 lakh metric tonnes of garbage from here by March next year. Work is going on at double speed. Soon, Delhi will be made garbage-free,” he promised.

Kejriwal, who recently visited the Okhla landfill site, said that the government was hoping to clear the site by December, ahead of the target of May 2024. He added that the government was hoping to clear all three landfill sites, the last one being the Ghazipur landfill, by December 2024.

All three landfills exceeded their capacity years ago. Okhla reached its capacity in 2010, Bhalswa in 2003 and Ghazipur in 2002. Despite having control of all three of Delhi’s civic bodies for 15 years, the BJP couldn’t find a permanent solution to the waste problem.

The city’s waste processing capacity is lower than the amount of waste generated daily. As a result, garbage has been piling up at an alarming rate. Currently, the city produces 11,000 MT of the garbage but there is only a capacity to deal with over 8,100 MT of waste. The remaining garbage is sent to various landfills. But the city is working to expand its waste processing capacity through projects like the Bawana waste-to-energy plant, but the plant will only be ready by 2026.

“Expansion work is underway at Okhla to handle 1,000 MT of the garbage while the Bawana Waste to Energy Plant will be ready by 2026 to handle 2,000 MT of garbage,” Kejriwal said.

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Over 30 lakh MT of waste was removed in 2019 from the Bhalswa landfill. A total of 50 lakh MT of waste still remains at the site, of which 30 lakh MT will be removed by December 2023. At the Okhla site, 25 lakh MT of waste was processed during the same period. The Okhla site still houses over 40 lakh MT of waste.

All three landfills are aimed to be completely emptied by 2024, but experts suggest that until the new waste is banned from being dumped in the areas the process will take much longer. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) estimated that it would take another five years to reach the goals set by the now AAP-controlled MCD, reported the Print. Now, with the G20 Summit being held in the city in September, the pressure is on to at least clear the Ohkla landfill as soon as possible.

(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)