The continuing standoff at Rani Khera, where villagers are refusing to let garbage be dumped in their area, has east Delhi staring at a serious sanitation crisis with the municipal corporation running out of space to dump its waste.
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Sources said the East Delhi Municipal Corporation was lifting just 50% of the garbage generated in the area following the lieutenant governor banning the dumping of waste at the Ghazipur landfill after last Friday's cave-in that killed two people.
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"Around 1,200 tonnes of garbage was lifted from various areas and sent to the waste-to-energy plant at Ghazipur on Monday. EDMC generates around 2,500 tonnes of garbage daily," said an official.
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Some garbage was also being taken to the landfill site at Okhla, he said. Angry villagers continued to block waste-dumping at EDMC's proposed landfill at Rani Khera on Monday. The protest forced many garbage dumpers to return with the waste to the parking depot at Ghazipur landfill. Dozens of garbage laden dumpers were seen parked outside the Ghazipur site.
"A majority of the dumpers did not come out of the depot on Monday," said a source. Meanwhile, protests at Rani Khera intensified with more women joining the agitation against waste-dumping at the site.
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"We did not allow any garbage dumper to enter the village," said Arun Dabas, one of the protesters. The tyres of around five garbage dumpers were deflated. "We were asked to use loaders to compress the garbage into the dhalaos so that they do not overflow onto the streets. The sanitation inspectors who reported to work continued to wait for the dumpers and finally returned when they did not come," said a sanitation inspector.
A dhalao near Shalimar Park in east Delhi was overflowing, with garbage spilling onto the road, choking traffic.
Similar scenes were playing out in Jaffrabad, Seelampur, Gandhi Nagar and several other places. "The rains will cause the garbage to spread on the road. This is inviting diseases," said Mukund Sharma, who runs an eatery near the Nirman Vihar Metro station, where a dhalao was overflowing with garbage.
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EDMC officials avoided speaking to journalists about the situation. They gave a presentation before the National Green Tribunal on Monday on how they plan to use a 150-acre land on Yamuna flood plains at Ghonda for an engineered landfill site. According to EDMC, this site will be used for the treatment of waste and water pollutants. It will be a zero-waste facility that will not pollute the river, they claimed. The meeting remained inconclusive.
However, a source said EDMC was planning to use a place next to its methane plant at the Ghazipur landfill to dump garbage. The site was used to dump waste years ago. The height of this site, within the Ghazipur landfill, is less than 25 metres ¡ª half the elevation of the Ghazipur waste hill. "We can use earthmovers to level the patch and dump garbage there," said an official.