Center approves projects worth Rs 776 crore to dispose of 253 lakh metric tons of waste at three legacy landfills in Delhi

New Delhi: The central government has approved a fund of Rs 776 crore to remediate 253 lakh metric tons of waste covering 186 acres of land across the nation’s capital. The project aims to clean up old landfills within a set time frame.

A high-level meeting was organized on Monday by the Union Ministry of Housing and the City (MoHUA) to discuss the progress made in the remediation of the three old landfills in the areas – Ok so, Ghazipur and Bhalswa — under the three municipal corporations of Delhi.

The issue of old landfills in Indian cities is an ongoing environmental concern.

According to MoHUA, the Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (2.0) implemented by the ministry addressed the challenge in a targeted manner, in a first initiative of its kind in the country.

“SBM-U 2.0 now focuses on both ends of the solid waste management chain, namely the management of generation as well as the safe disposal of municipal solid waste in a sustainable manner, to ensure that no new landfill is created in the future, and all old landfills are being remediated,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry further stated that the mission focused on source separation of solid waste, collection and transport of sorted waste fractions, ensuring compliance of bulk waste generators (entities generating more than 100 kg of waste per day) to manage their own waste, maximum resource recovery and scientific waste treatment of all segregated waste fractions (including plastic waste) to prevent fresh untreated waste from ending up in landfills, and bio- remediation of all legacy landfills across the country to reclaim 15,000 acres of prime real estate buried under nearly 16 crore tonnes of legacy waste.

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At the same time, the mission has planned scientific landfills to eliminate untreated inert materials and process scrap, in order to avoid the creation of new landfills.

The three MCDs reported that they collectively generate 11,000 tonnes per day of solid waste, of which approximately 5,900 tonnes per day is currently scientifically processed, at 3 waste-to-energy plants located at Narela Bawana, Okhla and Ghazipur sites. .

Across the three dump sites, a total of around 42 lakh metric tons have been remediated so far, but the rest of the fresh untreated waste that continues to be dumped at these sites offsets any remediation carried out so far. .