AAP smells BJP conspiracy in garbage fire
NEW DELHI: A massive fire raging at the Bhalswa landfill in north-west Delhi for a week has triggered a row with the AAP government crying sabotage to derail its odd-even car rationing experiment.
“Brazen attempt to fail OddEven by MCD. 3 landfills put on fire. DFS trying to contain the fire,” (sic) tweeted a Delhi government media advisor. Delhi’s landfills are managed by the BJP-run municipal corporations.
A landfill fire will send air pollution levels soaring and provide ammunition to detractors of the odd-even scheme to claim that it did not meet its primary purpose -- to clean city’s air.
In a series of tweets, AAP’s Delhi unit convener Dilip Pandey accused the BJP of deliberately setting the garbage on fire. He accused blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi of getting the fire started through the municipal corporations and “playing with the lives of Delhiites”.
Delhi environment minister Imran Husain on Thursday visited the area amid the allegations. Husain held a meeting with fire officials and asked them to deploy 15 fire engines at the Bhalswa landfill.
The Delhi government has set up a committee to investigate fire at landfills and sought a report in three days. “We would like to believe that it is not sabotage but apart from landfill sites, there was a fire along the Yamuna bank, which has never happened before. An enquiry committee with members from urban development, environment and transport departments has been constituted to investigate this,” transport minister Gopal Rai said.
However, a government statement said fire at landfill sites is “routine” due to build up of methane gas.
The impact on air quality in the area was not immediately known since the nearest monitoring station at Punjabi Bagh is nearly 15 km away. But particulate matter of 10 micron size at Punjabi Bagh was recorded at 504 micro grams per cubic metre at 2pm – the highest in the past 24 hours.
Biomass and garbage burning are one of the biggest contributors of particulate matter pollutants that cause respiratory and cardiac problems.
PM 10 levels were higher at most stations on Thursday even though wind speed was good.
Three of the four landfill sites in Delhi have exhausted their capacity but most of the 10,000 solid municipal waste that the city generates daily lands at these dumps.