NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Wednesday expressed its concern over the recent Ghazipur landfill fire and sought a status report from the Centre, the government, Delhi Pollution Control Commission, and other authorities concerned explaining the reason behind the fire.
The court also asked the authorities to explain how the fire was dealt with and what they intended to do to avoid it in the future. A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi granted three weeks to the respondents to file their response and listed the case for further hearing in May.
“The respondents are directed to file a status report and action taken report disclosing the reason for the outbreak of fire, steps taken to extinguish it, and how respondents propose to ensure that such incident does not occur in the future,” ordered the bench also comprising Justice Navin Chawla.
The court said that the hazardous waste dumped at the site was burnt in the fire and the same resulted in severe air pollution. “We are concerned about the fire incident at the Ghazipur landfill site in East Delhi. A fire broke out on March 28 and April 9 leading to the burning of hazardous waste dumped at the site, which in turn led to huge smoke generation leading to severe air pollution” the bench said.
‘Need quick action for removal of waste’
New Delhi: On April 9, a fire had broken out at the Ghazipur landfill site nearly two weeks after a similar incident at the site on March 28. The Delhi Fire Service officials said that no casualty was reported. A thick blanket of smoke had engulfed east Delhi’s dumping yard after the March 28 fire which continued to rage on in some pockets even after 23 hours. Commissioned in 1984, the Ghazipur landfill site is spread across 70 acres. In 2019, the garbage dump site grew 65 metres high. According to National Green Tribunal, the municipal corporations have to remediate the legacy waste at the Ghazipur landfill by March 2022, Bhalswa by December 2023 and Okhla by March 2023.