Open garbage dump in Gurugram’s Civil Lines shut down after 15 years of complaints

An open garbage dump in the Civil Lines was shut down by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) on Saturday, 15 years after residents of the area first raised complaints about it. The waste from the area will be transferred to Ecogreen Energy’s transfer stations in Beribagh, Atul Kataria Chowk, and another one near Paras Hospital, where it will be segregated and then sent to the Bandhwari landfill.

Residents in the area have been irked by the accumulation of garbage, which began as a small dump in 2003 after various private contractors started dumping waste there. “Given that this is a popular place in Gurugram, with schools, hospitals, temples and shops nearby, it has taken an incredibly long time for this issue to be resolved. The clearing of the dump is a welcome change,” said Anil Kaushal, resident of the Civil Lines.

A notice board has been put up in the location by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram and Ecogreen, MCG’s concessionaire for waste management, prohibiting any further waste dumping there. Violators will now be penalised as per NGT guidelines and the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.

The students of SD Adarsh Public School, which was directly adjacent to the dump yard, were one of the primary victims of the health risks posed by the garbage sump. Over 150 complaints were submitted to the school’s management by parents in the past four months itself, complaining about the health risks. “Our junior block’s window opens up directly to the garbage, and the stench is so unbearable, that students can’t sit there,” said Pinky Shekhawat, headmistress of SD Adarsh Public School.

The chief minister’s office had actually sent a reply to the school in September 2016, saying that they could not remove the dump yard due to lack of dumping places in Gurugram, and safety precautions like the spraying of medicines are being taken by the MCG. During the monsoon, the problem accentuates as the water flowing in is contaminated and the place becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

“We are very glad this dump yard is being shut down, as students would often get sick because of it, and it was frankly very suffocating to be studying next to so much garbage,” said Yash Chahar, head boy of SD Adarsh Public School.

Shop owners and food vendors in the area were also affected by the garbage dump. “Residents can contract all sorts of diseases like malaria, dengue, swine flu, typhoid due to the dump . Customers would get a headache just standing here. This also serves as a bad example for tourists who come here, who have to cover their noses and mouth when passing by,” said Neel Kamal Gupta, who runs a medical store near the dump yard. The sentiment was also echoed by the food vendors in the area, who were aware of the health risks of selling food so close to a garbage dump yard, and would face a shortage of demand due to the stench.

Around a month back, a meeting took place with officials from the MCG, Ecogreen, chief minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar, residents and shopkeepers in the area where the decision was taken to shut the garbage dump yard. “We had received many complaints and we had to act on it,” said Subhash Singla, MCG councillor of ward 18.

In July, HT reported about a similar dump near Vidya School in Nathupur, Sector 24, which was causing inconvenience to the students there. No action has been taken to clear the dump, said Ila Sarin, Principal of Vidya School, despite the MCG issuing a notice to Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran, earlier known as the Haryana Urban Development Authority, to clean it up.

First Published: Aug 07, 2018 15:31 IST