LG, CM launch Delhi’s first engineered landfill site

New Delhi: Delhi has operationalised its fourth landfill site on Tuesday with the inauguration of the Tehkhand engineered landfill site in south-east Delhi even as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) biomining project to clear the three existing dumpsites has witnessed delays, officials aware of the matter said.

According to senior civic officials the several missed set for clearing the three dumpsites have been missed, and added that the pace of work at the Ghazipur site was the slowest.

MCD had launched the biomining project in July 2019 to clear the three oversaturated landfill sites which together hold an estimated 28 million tonnes of legacy waste. Despite biomining efforts, the three landfills still have 17.2 million tonnes of garbage, according to progress report submitted to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) in February shows.

The biomining of the three dumpsites was started in 2019 based on an National Green Tribunal order which had directed that legacy waste dumps are to be “cleared within one year but substantial progress must be made and demonstrated within six months”. However,there have been multiple revisions and extensions of these deadlines.

According to the MCD progress report submitted to DPCC on February 17, the deadline for the Ghazipur landfill has been pushed back from 2024 to 2026 and Bhalswa landfill in north Delhi will be cleared by 2025. The deadline for the Okhla landfill has been fixed as 2024, fresh dumping of waste has stopped at the site.

The trommeling and bio-mining of mixed legacy waste involves the separation of various components like inert materials and construction waste-boulders, fractions of soil, organic matter, combustibles--plastic, clothes, etc. The mixed legacy waste is passed them through a trommel machines -- cylindrical rotating sieves. A senior MCD official explained that while the fractions vary, the trommeling leads to 60-70% of inert material and 10-15% of combustibles.

An MCD official said that 58 trommel machines are currently deployed at the three landfill sites with 22 machines at Bhalswa, 25 at Ghazipur and 11 at Okhla. “The performance of the contractor at the Ghazipur landfill site has been slow and we have issued several warnings. Meanwhile, we are unable to hire the new companies due as the MCD standing committee was yet to be set up,” the official said. The formation of the 18-member standing committee, which controls the purse strings of the corporation, has remained pending over the last one year over the legal and political disputes over the appointment of the aldermen. The nod from the standing committee is needed for projects above Rs5 crore value.