Mayor, Commissioner Visit Bhalswa Site; NDMC to Invite Global Tender for Landfill Remediation

New Delhi, Oct 23 (PTI) Senior north Delhi municipal officials visited the Bhalswa landfill site Tuesday and the civic body announced a slew of measures for its remediation, as the over 60-meter-high garbage dump continued to smoulder, officials said.

Mayor Adesh Gupta, accompanied by Municipal Commissioner Madhup Vyas, Engineer-in-Chief Vijay Prakash, and other officials of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation and senior police officer visited the site this afternoon and inspected it for about 30 minutes.

Police also registered an FIR against unidentified persons under sections pertaining to making atmosphere noxious to health and act endangering life or personal safety of others.

The Bhalswa landfill site falls under the jurisdiction of the NDMC. The massive garbage heap had got saturated several years ago.

"Three immediate major decisions were taken, which included reinforcement of the barbed wire, deployment of a police team to restrict entry of ragpickers and night vigil by the staff stationed at the site," a senior NDMC official in the engineering department told PTI.

The mayor also decided that a "global tender" would soon be invited for remediation of the Bhalswa landfill site, the official said.

"The Bhalswa landfill site is spread over 70 acres, rising 62 meters. About 2,000 metric tonne of garbage is being dumped on it on a daily basis and currently it has 80 lakh metric tonne of garbage," the mayor was quoted as saying in an NDMC statement.

Gupta also directed officials to expedite the treatment of garbage.

"A consultancy firm has been hired for remediation of the Bhalswa landfill site, which has submitted the initial report on it. The firm has done boring at 28 points of the dump to study the culture of garbage. As per the received report, it is being ascertained that the garbage is 12 meter-deep below the ground," he said.

Gupta said the consultancy firm would be submitting its final report by the end of the year based on which the NDMC would release a global tender for work on slope stabilisation, leachate (dirty water) treatment, bio-mining (segregation of garbage) and capping at the Bhalswa landfill site.

"We already have a waste-to-energy plant at Narela-Bawana with a daily capacity of 24 MW of electricity and another plant we are going to commission another plant soon. We expect to close dumping at Bhalswa site by next 18 months," the mayor said.

Sporadic Fire incidents keep taking place at the humongous site caused by natural factors or triggered by some incendiary material.

A fire has been raging at the Bhalswa landfill site since October 20, raising concerns about the air quality in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) further deteriorating.

The Delhi Fire Service (DFS) department had on Monday night said the blaze at the site was "almost" brought under control by 7:30 pm.

A senior DFS official, however, Tuesday said parts of the dump site was still smouldering.

Gupta said the NDMC has deployed "its 60 employees, full bulldozers and two excavators at the Bhalswa site to manage and regulate the garbage round-the-clock".

"Also, four fire tenders have been dedicated by the fire department for the site," the mayor said, directing the officials to strengthen the barbed wire fencing to check trespassing by locals.

He also sought help of the city police to ensure compliance, the civic body said.

However, police said they have requested the municipal body to increase the deployment security guards since the district police is burdened with law and order issues.

Delhi's air quality remained in the "poor" category Tuesday, a day after it had improved from the "very poor" Air Quality Index (AQI) zone. But experts have said it may deteriorate in the coming days due to the toxic air emanating from the fire at the Bhalswa landfill site.

Delhi Environment minister Imran Hussain had Monday expressed serious concerns over the fire as the city is already fighting the adverse impact of stubble burning in the neighbouring states.

Hussain directed the three municipal corporations in the national capital to work on preventing incidents of fire at landfill sites.

He also told DFS officials to depute a fire tender exclusively to tackle future fire incidents at the Bhalswa landfill site.

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