Fumes from burnt industrial waste, garbage choke air in Bawana, Narela
NEW DELHI: At half past midnight, fumes from burning of plastic and rubber fill the air at Bawana and Narela — two of Delhi’s largest industrial areas. These fumes are the result of dozens of fires, which had just died, dotting hundreds of vacant plots in the areas.
Hindustan Times visited the spots on Friday night and found widespread violations of environmental norms.
The air quality index (AQI) values of both Bawana and Narela stood at 426 on Monday, placing them in ‘severe’ category.
At 12.19 am, in Bawana’s Sector-2, ashes from freshly-burnt garbage lay on the top of mounds of garbage. The piles appear to contain plastic, aluminium, cloth shreds, rubber soles and construction debris.
A few kilometres away, the smell of burnt rubber and plastic come from another plot which had heaps of industrial waste like plastic trays, paper plates and polythene sheets.
A large open field along the Bawana canal had several-metres-high mounds of waste. It resembled a landfill site. Another patch of land appeared to have been cleared just a few days ago.
“It was cleared with the help of industrial associations after several teams from an environment monitoring agency inspected the area last week. It took the workers around three to four days to clear the mess,” said a police official who was patrolling the area.
According to official figures, the two industrial areas generate approximately 1,500 metric ton- nes of waste on a monthly basis. Most of this is plastic and rubber, as the areas house a large number of shoe-making units.
A few metres away in Bawana Sector-4, a stretch of unpaved road was barely visible under a cloud of dust. “This is when the patch has become a lot better over the last few days. It was much worse earlier,” said, Rajesh Ahuja, who runs a paper printing unit in the area.
Of the 16,500 plots in Bawana, around 850 are vacant. Narela has around 200-250 plots lying vacant out of the total 3,500.
According to Delhi Fire Services officials, they get calls to douse a fire every two to three days from these areas.
WASTE PROBLEMS
Open burning of waste is prohibited across Delhi attracting a pen- alty of ₹5,000, as per National Green Tribunal (NGT) guidelines.
During an inspection, burning of plastic and rubber waste in vacant plots of Bawana and Narela industrial resulting in fires raging for days had prompted the Sc-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) to ask government to form teams for night patrolling in the area.
However, on Friday night, no night patrolling could be spotted.
Earlier this month, EPCA levied a fine of ₹10 lakh each on two private concessionaires who are responsible for waste collection in the areas and a fine of ₹5 lakh on the DSIIDC for its failure to prevent the problem.
According to Rajeev Goyal, president, Bawana Industrial Association, concessionaire has started picking up the garbage since the EPCA directions.
Industrial units owners claimed until now despite paying ₹12,000 a month, waste was only picked up once a week.
HT had earlier reported NASA satellites had detected several ‘red dots’ in Delhi, indicating that open garbage burning may still prevalent. Some of these spots were in Narela and Bawana.
Lieutenant governor Anil Baijal on Monday took stock of measures to curb pollution levels in industrial areas that have emerged as pollution ‘hotspots.’
“Violators will have to pay a hefty penalty for both dumping and burning of waste. Burning of plastic and rubber waste emits fumes that are cancerous in nature and can lead to cardiovascular diseases,” said EPCA chairman Bhure Lal.