DNA Special: Delhi’s burning garbage mountain puts health of millions at stake

Fire broke out in a mountain of garbage in Delhi at around 6 pm on Tuesday, April 26. Its smoke and stench have worsened the condition of the people around. These landfill sites are in Bhalswa in Delhi and it should have been closed long ago, but even today this big mountain of garbage stands.

Due to the fire in the mountain of garbage, a school running there has been closed, the fire of the mountain of garbage has melted to the school's window, door. Solar panels have stopped working, so you can better understand how the condition of small children studying in that school will be. Due to the fire at the Bhalswa landfill site, the children coming to the school were having trouble breathing, their health was deteriorating. That is why the school administration decided that the children would not come to school until the fire was extinguished.

READ | Delhi: Fire in parts of Bhalaswa landfill site continues to rage

Although it is now being claimed that the fire is under control there, there is still fire at some places on the dumping site. There is still thick smoke coming out of the dumping ground. This smoke is so dangerous that it is suffocating not only to children but also older people. They are also having trouble breathing and for the last about 50 hours, they have been struggling with this problem.

If a person stays in the midst of such smoke for 60 consecutive days, then his lungs are as much damaged as smoking cigarettes for 10 years.

You can say that this mountain of garbage is no less than a problem. Which people around them have been suffering for a long time. Every landfill site has an age. That is, it is decided by the government and the administration that for how many years you can dump garbage in which place.

Under this, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had set a target to close the Bhalswa landfill site by June 2022 this year, but still around 2 hectares of garbage of north Delhi is being dumped here. About 10 tons of garbage comes in a truck, in such a way, you can understand that about 250 trucks are being loaded and garbage is being dumped at Bhalswa landfill site.

Imagine what kind of government system this is. In the landfill site that should have been closed in the next two months, only 22 per cent i.e., about 18 lakh metric tonnes of waste has been disposed of while 62 lakh metric tonnes of garbage still stored at the Bhalswa landfill site, i.e., you can guess how many trucks of garbage are piled up in Bhalswa alone. 

The Delhi government has imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on the North Delhi Municipal Corporation for this negligence. The fine has been imposed by the DPPC i.e., Delhi Pollution Control Committee on behalf of the Delhi government, but will this fine reduce the sufferings of the people?

This landfill site at Bhalswa was started in the year 1994, according to the 2020 report, the height of the garbage there has increased to 62 meters. This height is only 11 meters less than the Qutub Minar at 73 meters. The Bhalswa landfill site is spread over about 36 acres.  Apart from this, the height of Ghazipur landfill site is about 65 meters and the height of the garbage mountain in Okhla is about 40 meters.

It is ironical that due to this huge mountain of garbage in Bhalswa alone, the health of millions of people of Delhi is getting affected and these are the people who live in the areas around this garbage mountain and now these people have got used to living with this filth or even if they do not want to, these people are forced to live here. is. It seems that the administration and the government have nothing to do with the pain and suffering of these people. Because if there was a concern, the three big mountains of garbage in Delhi, Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla, under the rules, these three landfill sites should have been closed by now. The Ghazipur landfill site should have been closed in 2002 itself, but millions of tons of garbage still stored there. According to an estimate, at present, about 280 lakh tonnes of garbage is stored at the three landfill sites. And the deadline to eliminate these three mountains of garbage has been set as December 2024. But the way the work of removing garbage is going on and garbage is also being dumped in them continuously, this deadline is also looking small.