Baijal bans dumping of solid waste at Delhi landfill

A day after a huge portion of a landfill in east Delhi's Ghazipur collapsed leading to two deaths, Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal on Saturday banned dumping of solid waste at the site.

Baijal held an emergency meeting for immediate measures to be taken in view of Friday's incident of garbage slide at Ghazipur landfill and ordered an immediate halt to dumping of solid waste at the landfill and clearing the site within two years.

"The LG directed that no more dumping of solid waste and any other kind of silt would take place at the Ghazipur landfill site. The East MCD would be sending its collected dump to another alternative site immediately," said a press statement from the Lt Governor.

Traffic has been diverted from the adjoining road as an immediate safety measure and traffic police posted in the area to ensure proper traffic circulation. People are advised to use alternate routes, the statement said.

The meeting was attended by Commissioner of East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), General Manager of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Principal Commissioner (lands) DDA, experts in landfill site management and other concerned officials.

NHAI will begin the process of lifting, segregating and processing the solid waste by November 2017, for which purpose the requisite processes are already being fast tracked, said the LG statement.

"The dumped waste will be used for construction of service roads and the entire landfill site will be cleared within two years," the statement added.

The NHAI has also started lifting the garbage to be used in construction of service roads from November, it added.

On Friday afternoon, two persons, including a woman, were killed when a huge portion of the landfill in Ghazipur collapsed.

The collapsed mound's debris swept away a car and a two-wheeler, along with their riders, into the nearby Kondli canal.

The Ghazipur landfill is among the four dump sites in the national capital and the collected waste had reached a height of 50 metres, as tall as a 15-storey building.

--IANS

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