Dumping municipal waste on vacant plots: Swachh Bharat, the Noida way

Queries sent to the Noida Authority CEO Alok Tandon and Noida Authority additional CEO RK Mishra on the issue did not elicit responses.(File photo)

The Clean India Mission may be one of the most widely pushed programmes of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, but the Noida Authority — Uttar Pradesh’s richest civic body — continues with the practice of dumping its solid waste on vacant plots in residential or industrial areas.

The industrial township on the outskirts of Delhi generates around 660 metric tonnes of solid waste every day and dumps it on vacant plots in violation of the new Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, issued by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest in April last year, notwithstanding sporadic protests by residents and even orders issued by the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

On October 10, a principal bench of the NGT passed an interim order directing the Noida Authority to not dump waste in a vacant industrial plot at Sector 138A. Apart from this site, the Authority collects solid waste and dumps it at several other locations in the township, including at Sector 85 and Sector 51. A week after the NGT’s interim order, which came in response to a petition by local residents that said the illegal dumping of waste posed health risks to over half a dozen housing complexes around the plot, trucks and trailers have continued to make sorties to dump waste at the site.

Queries sent to the Noida Authority CEO Alok Tandon and Noida Authority additional CEO RK Mishra on the issue did not elicit responses.

While a landfill site earmarked to come up in Greater Noida’s Astoli — a 110-acre plot specifically identified for waste disposal — is reportedly being readied for dumping solid waste from both Noida and Greater Noida, the Authority has, however, been dragging its feet on readying the facility. Alongside the 660 tonnes of municipal waste generated by Noida, the adjoining township of Greater Noida generates another 200 tonnes, even as both towns are yet to have a facility to scientifically treat the waste. This is despite the fact that Noida was established in 1976 and Greater Noida was set up in 1992.

“The boundary wall is still being constructed at the Astoli landfill site. Operationalisation of the landfill could take up to six months even in the most optimistic scenario,” an official involved in the exercise said. The Authority had earlier floated a tender to select an agency for construction material treatment and the bids were opened on October 5. Since just one agency had put in a bid, the tender will now be floated again, officials indicated. At the NGT ruling, the Noida Authority’s counsel had submitted that it be allowed to dump waste at the Sector 138A site until the notified landfill site in Greater Noida’s Astoli gets “ready for use”.

With the NGT’s interim order ruling out any possibility of the dumping of waste at this site continuing, it’s a divided house on whether the Noida Authority will work towards a permanent solution on the solid waste disposal problem or simply continue with its policy of dumping waste at temporary landfills. The Authority is learnt to be evaluating two other sites as a potential alternative — both of them being vacant plots. This is proposed as an interim solution, till the time the Astoli landfill comes up, officials insisted on conditions of anonymity.

In keeping with its practice of disposing of solid waste at vacant plots, the Authority had earlier dumped garbage at an empty plot in Sector 123, which it was forced to stop after the NGT intervened and stayed this in 2015 after residents objected. Prior to the illegal dumping at the Sector 138A site, the Authority was disposing garbage along two natural lakes opposite apartment complexes in Sector 137 till mid last year. Protests from local residents forced the Authority to beat a hasty retreat and extend an assurance that it would get the two lakes cleaned up.

Despite the city administration’s poor track record on garbage disposal and waste treatment, the Noida Authority had, on September 28, signed a pact with the National Institute of Training for Standardisation (NITS), Bureau of Indian Standards, for the proposed state-of-art integrated solid waste management system on Wednesday.

According to Noida Authority officials, with the signing of the pact, a scientific management and disposal system of the municipal solid waste generated in the city will be implemented in order to comply with the new Solid Waste (Management & Handling) Rules 2016. “For this purpose, NITS, BIS will assist and guide us as well as the agency we appoint to deal with our solid waste,” Additional CEO Mishra had said at the signing of the pact.

The Union environment ministry’s revised Solid Waste Management Rules, which were changed after 16 years, are now applicable beyond municipal areas and extend to urban agglomerations, census towns, notified industrial townships, areas under the control of Indian Railways, among other locations. Currently, around 62 million tonnes of waste is generated annually in the country, out of which 5.6 million tonnes is plastic waste, 0.17 million tonnes is biomedical waste, hazardous waste generation is 7.90 million tonnes per annum and 15 lakh tonne is e-waste. The per capita waste generation in Indian cities ranges from 200 grams to 600 grams per day. The worrying aspect is that of the 43 million tonnes per annum of waste that is collected, 11.9 million is treated and 31 million is dumped in landfill sites, which means that only about 75-80 per cent of the municipal waste gets collected and only 22-28 per cent of this waste is processed and treated.

Under the new rules, waste processing facilities will have to be set up by all local bodies having 1 million or more population within two years.