Environment committee issues notice to MCD over Ghazipur Landfill fire incident

New Delhi: Delhi Assembly’s Committee on Environment Affairs on Wednesday served a notice to East MCD after it failed to furnish the documents related to the purchase of recycling plants and bio-decomposers to sort waste on the Ghazipur Landfill site before the panel. 

Aam Aadmi Party MLA and the panel’s Chairperson Atishi said that the notice was served after the MCD did not produce the documents despite taking a week from the committee. 

“There are repeated instances of fire at Ghazipur landfill site in summers. In the past 3 weeks, the place has caught fire twice already. The Environment Committee of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha summoned East MCD officers to inquire about their solutions to tackle such instances of fire in future, and of eventual disposal of the landfill.

However, we found in their depositions that the East MCD does not have any time-bound action plan in place or a blueprint for navigating the disposal process, nor do they have the funds to implement any disposal plans.

The Environment Committee suspected the occurrence of a major scam. So we demanded that the East MCD officials present all related documents, tenders, all contracts with the various companies, details of recycling plants, compost plants, trommel machines & their cost – and to produce these, the East MCD asked the Environment Committee for a week.

However, despite one week has passed, the East Municipal Corporation of Delhi has not produced a single document in front of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha,” she stated the sequence of events.

The senior leader of AAP also indicated corruption by the civic body in the purchase of equipment for sorting waste at the Ghazipur dumpsite.

“The East MCD has caused a major scam in the name of waste management and in order to hide it, they are refusing to share the documents with the committee,” Atishi said.

She also informed that the panel has submitted for strict action on the civic body’s officials for not cooperating with the committee’s probe.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Municipal corporation, Delhi Government and other respondents to file a status report and action taken report on the two recent’s Ghazipur landfill fire matter.

The bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla sought responses from all concerned authorities in the matter and posted the matter for May 4, 2022.

Since it began operations in 1984, the 70-acre (283,280 square meter) Ghazipur landfill has grown into a staggering, towering mound of garbage, inching as the 73-meter (240-feet) Taj Mahal. More than two dozen fires have broken out at the site since 2019, according to New Delhi’s fire department.

One of three landfills in the area, it accepts between 1,800 to 2,000 tons of waste every day, according to a 2017 report from environmental group Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).

The Ghazipur landfill surpassed its waste capacity in 2002, and ever since, officials have been looking at options to address the issue, with environmental groups imploring the government to urgently address the unfolding crisis.