Bandhwari makes up nearly 50% of waste at Haryana landfills

Gurgaon: There are 22 dumping sites in Haryana where around 60.33 lakh metric tonnes of municipal solid waste is lying unattended. Of this, around 27.5 lakh metric tonne of waste is lying in city’s Bandhwari landfill and it is causing environmental damage amounting to over Rs 148 crore. This was revealed by a study conducted by a joint committee, comprising Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and IIT Delhi on the direction of the NGT.
This is for the first time that the tribunal has assessed the damage cost for municipal corporations.
In March 2019, the green tribunal had said in its order that a joint committee should carry completed its survey and submitted the report in February this year. The objective of the study was to make recovery of compensation from the people responsible for it. However, official records show that no recovery has been made from the municipal corporation till now.
“The damage cost has been assessed in terms of impact on health due to release of pollutants in air, release of leachate into the ground /surface water and soil, climate change due to carbon dioxide and methane, aesthetics loss, price depreciation due to disamenity etc,” said the report filed before the NGT.
However, additional chief secretary of urban local bodies filed a status report before the NGT on October 9 highlighting that efforts are being made by the municipalities to complete the work of bioremediation of municipal waste within the time prescribed by NGT in the concerned municipal areas.
“Five municipal corporations – Gurgaon, Rohtak, Hisar, Panchkula and Bahadurgarh have started the process of bioremediation of legacy waste lying at the existing landfills. While tender has been issued in the remaining 17 municipal corporations,” said senior officials of the urban local body.
Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel of NGT in his order had observed that loss to the environment and public health is taking place not only on account of delay in clearing municipal waste but also for not complying with other provisions of the rules resulting in huge gap in generation and processing of waste. Fixing the liability of each local body for such damage, NGT in February had directed to pay compensation at the rate of Rs 10 lakh per month per local body for population of above 10 lakh, Rs 5 lakh per month per local body for population between 5 lakh and 10 lakh and Rs 1 lakh per month for other local bodies from April 1, 2020 till compliance.
The NGT had also directed that in case a local body is unable to pay the compensation then it is the liability of the state government.