CM Kejriwal inspects Okhla landfill site, says Delhi will be landfill site free by December next year
Mar 03, 2023
New Delhi [India], March 3 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday inspected the Okhla landfill site and said that the national capital will be free from all three "mountains of garbage" by December 2024.
The other two are Ghazipur and Bhalswa landfill sites.
He undertook a review of the processes that are ongoing to clear up the waste at the Okhla landfill site.
After going through the site, he announced that the Delhi Government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is hopeful of clearing this landfill site by December this year and all three landfill sites by December 2024.
Urban Development Minister Kailash Gahlot, MCD Mayor Shelly Oberoi and Deputy Mayor Aaley Iqbal were also present on the inspection with the CM.
The area of the Sanitary Landfill (SLF) is about 63 acres. Garbage has been coming here since 1996. Following the instructions of NGT, in 2019, the initiative to remove the garbage by biomining was started from here.
Till March 1, about 25.56 lakh metric tonnes of garbage has been removed from here. The agency doing the work of biomining and bioremediation from the Okhla landfill site has to dispose of 30 lakh metric tonnes of garbage.
Till March 1, 5.10 lakh metric tonnes of garbage have been removed and disposed of. A target has been given to completely clean the litter by May 2024. The agency has been given a separate target of three months each to clear the garbage from the Okhla landfill site.
After the Inspection, while talking to the media, CM said, "The mountain of waste has been around for 26 years and has been adding on waste since then. The landfill has about 40 lakh metric tonnes of waste at the moment. Since 2019, the MCD has been removing waste from here and around 25 lakh metric tonnes of waste has been processed, but there is still around 40 lakh metric tonnes of waste lying here at the time."
"The initial target was to clear this space up by May next year but the work is already underway here and the government was hopeful of clearing the landfill by December this year," the CM added.
Kejriwal said that from April 1, the Delhi Government will be increasing its capacity to dispose of waste to 10,000 metric tonnes
"The bio mining capacity is fairly high at around 17,000 metric tonnes. But the capacity to take the waste elsewhere is much lower. The waste that is picked from here has to be taken somewhere else and the capacity of that is lower than the biomining capacity. There are three kinds of wastes, C&D, RDF and Inert waste. Our capacity to dispose of waste at the moment is around 4,500 tonnes. For a while now, we have been wanting to increase this capacity and I have just been informed that from April 1, the Delhi Government will be increasing its capacity to dispose of waste to 10,000 metric tonnes," the CM added.
He further said that the Delhi Government is also hopeful that it will be able to dispose of 15,000 metric tonnes of waste by June 1.
"If the government manages to achieve this target then hopefully by December this year or January next year, the mountain of waste here at the Okhla landfill site will be disposed of. This will be a huge relief to those who live close to this site" he added.
On the question of all three garbage mountains, CM said, "The second landfill site will be cleared by May next year and we hope Delhi will be landfill site free by December next year."
The Chief Minister also announced that once the Delhi Government clears the landfill, then there is a plan to build a plant to form bricks from the construction and demolition (C&D) waste and there is a plan to create a biomethanation plant.
