Okhla 'garbage mountain' will be cleared by December, Delhi CM promises

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal along with mayor Shelly Oberoi and transport minister Kailash Gehlot visited the Okhla landfill site on March 3. (Pic credit: @OberoiShelly)

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on March 3 vowed to clear the Okhla landfill site by December 2023. He visited the site along with Delhi's newly-elected mayor Shelly Oberoi and transport minister Kailash Gehlot.

He said the landfill site in Okhla, Delhi, has become a “garbage mountain” over the last twenty-six years and a process has been initiated to clear it at the earliest.

“The process of removing garbage from the site began in 2019. About 20-25 lakh metric tonnes of garbage has already been cleared; another 40 lakh metric tonnes of the garbage still remains at the site,” said Arvind Kejriwal.

While the target we set to get the Okhla landfill cleared is May 2024, our officers and engineers are putting in arduous efforts to get it cleared by the end of this year itself, he said.

“The capacity of removing the garbage by digging (biomining) is 17,000 metric tonnes, but the disposal capacity is 4,000 metric tonnes. From April 1, we will ensure that 10,000 metric tonnes of the waste get disposed of daily from the site,” Kejriwal added.

He further said that the capacity of disposing garbage from June 1 will increase to around 15,000 metric tonnes per day, a news that is expected to bring relief to the people living in the area.

"Once the landfill site is cleared, we have plans of setting up a construction and demolition (C&D) waste recycling plant there, the Delhi CM said.

Meanwhile, the process of removing garbage from two other landfill sites, namely, Bhalswa and Ghazipur has been initiated too, he informed.

Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has wrested control of the city-state’s municipal corporation from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which administered the civic body for 15 years.

AAP fought the municipal elections on the plank of ridding the city of its garbage.

In the campaign spearheaded by Arvind Kejriwal and his former deputy Manish Sisodia, AAP made sanitation the central issue, accusing the BJP of corruption and allowing three garbage mountains to pile up in the city.