NEW DELHI: Towering far above its surroundings, the landfill in southeast Delhi’s Okhla can easily be mistaken for a mountain.
Despite its permanent nature, the landfill was supposed to be gone. Last year, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the landfill site and promised to clear it by the end of 2023. Though the date has been extended to December 2024, it seems impossible to meet the target as the 34 lakh megatons of waste still stand tall.
The people living near the landfill, whose health is threatened, have lost all hope and have accepted the hazardous environment.
“I have been living here for over 22 years now. The dump of garbage has only gotten bigger and bigger over time. We have all gotten used to the stench by now,” said Sunil, a Tehkhand resident, a cluster of some 200 jhuggis next to the landfill.
Legacy waste treatment and disposal by biomining began at the site in 2019 following the National Green Tribunal (NGT) instructions. At the time, the site contained 60 lakh megatons of waste. A volumetric assessment carried out by drone in June 2022 revealed that this number had reduced to 45 lakh megatons. Since then, another 21 lakh megatons of waste has been bio-mined from the site. A total of 11 trammel machines are currently operational at the site.
However, with 10.16 lakh megatons of fresh waste deposited at the site between July 2022 and January 2024, the deadline for complete remediation has silently been extended to December 31, 2024.
Speaking anonymously, an official at the site said, “A lot of work has been going on here, and the amount of waste has significantly reduced. But with truckloads of fresh waste coming in every day, I doubt whether we’ll be able to clear the landfill anytime soon.”
The Okhla landfill was commissioned in 1990s and it reached its saturation point several years ago. The Okhla landfill site contains about 40 lakh MT of legacy waste in it.
The city cumulatively generates around 11,400 metric tonnes of garbage, out of which nearly 6,200 metric tonnes is dumped at three landfills, that is, Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalaswa, civic officials had said in 2021. Clearing the three landfills was among the electoral promises of AAP during the 2019 state assembly elections.