Forget wiping landfills, basics absent, say voters around 3 trash mountains
NEW DELHI: Every morning, as Bhupender Kumar (48) leaves his home for work, a vast structure blocks out the sunlight and casts a long shadow over vast parts of his village. But this is no ordinary formation --Kumar lives in Tehkhand village, at the edge of the Okhla landfill, one of Delhi’s three so-called garbage “mountains” that amass a collective 11,000 tonnes of waste daily.
In a bitterly-contested campaign for Sunday’s municipal elections, the three landfill sites came into sharp focus as parties traded barbs, insults and allegations, but for people living in the shadows of these garbage “mountains”, this issue is a highly saturated factor that has been accepted as a fait accompli, and residents said they voted to improve other development issues or among personal preferences.
Speaking about the Okhla landfill, Kumar said, “All parties have promised to clear the landfill in the past as well. Let us see if the issue remains alive even after the elections.” He added that with rampant unplanned development, encroachment on roads, garbage on the streets and an overflowing sewage network were far more pressing issues for him and his neighbours.
Located on the edge of the Bhalswa landfill site in north Delhi, the Shradhanand Colony has been represented by several senior municipal functionaries, including the former deputy standing committee chairman in the erstwhile North MCD, but a solution to the landfill site and the massive fires it witnesses every year remain a distant pipe dream.
Navneet Singh, a homemaker who lives in Bhalswa, said, “There is a foul smell in the entire area due to the landfill, but we have got used to it. More than the smell, what bothers us is the medical problems we face in this area. Most people have breathing difficulties and skin problems, but this is not the only issue in this election, as people know that this problem can’t be solved in just one or two years.”
Suman Yadav, 30, who runs a grocery store near the Bhalswa landfill, said for years, every time an election candidate has passed through the area, they have promised to clear the site, but nothing has happened so far. “We don’t have any hope that this will ever be cleared. What we want is better services such as streetlights, roads and drainage,” she said.
Mohammad Tayyab, a physiotherapist in the area, said the landfill is an important factor but they have other concerns. “During the monsoons, the entire colony gets flooded. We want the party which comes to power to first fix basic problems,” he said.
At the eastern edge of the city, the Ghazipur landfill site -- the largest in the city -- has acted as a launching pad for various protests and election campaigns over the last two months. Voters in the surrounding neighbourhoods, however, were not very hopeful of a solution anytime soon.
“I shifted to Gharoli Extension around 30 years ago. At that time, the landfill site was tiny compared to today. During every election, politicians promise us that they will get rid of this mountain but nothing has been done so far. We are now used to this foul smell,” said Samsuddin (54), who lives in nearby Mulla Colony and runs a footwear shop.
Malti Devi (44), a resident of Rajbir Colony, said a city the size of Delhi has no alternate but to dump its garbage either at the three existing landfill sites, or to create a new one and see it grow into another “mountain” in a few years.
“It is better that politicians not make promises that they can’t fulfil. They should instead give us assurances on other issues, like roads, drainage system, schools and employment. Unfortunately, nobody wants the important issues to be addressed,” she said, adding that she has voted for “development”.
Garbage management and ways to process Delhi’s waste is a subject close to the heart of the residents of south-east Delhi’s Sukhdev Vihar, who have been fighting tooth-and-nail for the last decade to get the nearby waste-to-energy plant removed. Upendra Bharadwaj, president of the Sukhdev Vihar Pocket B RWA, said, “We have been asking for the waste-to-energy plant to be moved, while the landfill needs to be flattened as well.”
VC Kapoor, a chartered accountant in Sukhdev Vihar, said he was contemplating casting NOTA (none of the above), but eventually decided to use his vote to bring about a change. “This waste-to-energy plant is a problem that has been impacting locals for over a decade now. It is impacting the health of the people and the MCD has done little. We are hopeful by casting our votes, some change comes,” he said.