Delhi on a pile of garbage

New Delhi, 19 March 2023, (RNI): The problems of cleanliness and accumulation of garbage are continuously increasing in the country's capital Delhi. Despite this, it is not able to be diagnosed.

If experts are to be believed, the cleaning work is done in three stages. The first is daily cleaning and lifting of garbage from the houses, the second is transporting the garbage from the garbage bins built at various places in the metropolis to Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalsawa and at these three places modern technique is used to dispose of the garbage, but despite spending thousands of crores of rupees every year on this work, due to lack of better coordination between the agencies, cleanliness has become a serious problem.

The first phase of cleanliness in the capital is handled by NDMC personnel in the New Delhi area and MCD personnel in the rest. These people do the work of cleaning the streets and picking up garbage from the houses, but these sanitation workers face various problems . Modern resources are not available to them even today. Because of this, so many sanitation workers lose their lives every year.

To execute the work of the second phase, the government has hired agencies on contract. Their job is to pick up the debris from the garbage houses and take them to the three designated places. But the reason for this work not being executed systematically. Since then, the conditions near the garbage houses are very bad.

Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalswa have become hell due to the huge deficiency in the execution of the work of the third phase. In these areas, the pile of garbage has taken the form of a mountain. The poisonous gas coming out of these piles has affected the lives of lakhs of people. Not only the air around is polluted but the water has also become polluted.

The mountain of garbage in South Delhi's Okhla is about 50 meters high and at present about 30 thousand metric tonnes of garbage is accumulated here, which has become dangerous for the people living here. Even worse is the situation in Ghazipur and Bhalswa.

To overcome these problems, during the hearing in NGT in January 2021, MCD had set a timeline for complete disposal of garbage. According to this, a target of 25 percent by December 2021, 50 percent by September 2022 and 100 percent by March 2023 was set to remove garbage from the Okhla site, but the March 2022 report shows that only 23.63 percent of the garbage has been disposed of from the Okhla landfill site.

The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti had said in a report last year that these landfill sites are also making the ground water poisonous. Chemicals like Calcium Carbonate, Sulphate Iron and Magnesium, Chloride, Nitrate, Ammonia, Phenol, Zinc have been found in the ground water of the residential areas surrounding the garbage mountains, which are extremely harmful for the body.

A study by the science journal Lancet also states that people living within a radius of 5 kilometers near a landfill site are at a higher risk of asthma, TB, diabetes and depression.

The serious problem of cleanliness and disposal of garbage is maximum in East Delhi. Seelampur councilor Begum Shakeela Afzal said that she has made complaints several times to the top officials of the corporation in this regard. Earlier, the corporation personnel were responsible for the disposal of garbage. Action was taken against their negligence, but now it is The responsibility rests with a private company.

MCD affiliated All Municipal Corporation Sanitation Supervisors Union Regd. Founder President Mukesh Kumar Vaidh said that no necessary equipment is being given to the cleaning workers. On the other hand, instead of improving, the condition has worsened due to the award of the contract to a private company in the year 2019. Because of this, we decided to launch this company. It has been decided to approach to court.

ASI Mr. Kumar told that we have to send photos and reports to the authorities about garbage daily. Information about these situations has been given to the corporation commissioner and other senior officials several times. He told that the cleaning workers have not been regularized for years. They are desperate. We can also adopt the path of agitation for this. What will be the condition of Delhi in such a situation?

Ashok Kumar, leader of sanitation workers in NDMC, says that after much struggle, R.M. R. Personnel have been regularised. Many other issues are pending. We have to take up that also.

Ashok Agyani, leader of the Delhi Democratic Alliance associated with the Valmiki Samaj, says that the responsibility of cleaning the capital lies with the Valmiki Samaj, but they have been backward since time immemorial. We are continuously fighting for their upliftment.