The Okhla landfills will remain in pictures only after December 2025 Delhi Environment Minister Sirsa

New Delhi: “Like the dinosaurs, this garbage mountain will become extinct, disappear,” Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa, announced emphatically during a visit to the Okhla landfill site on Thursday.

The minister said that the Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has set a target of December 2025 for eliminating these garbage mountains and everyone was working towards achieving that goal.

“This is PM Modi's vision too, on which CM Rekha Gupta is working,” Sirsa said.

Sirsa was optimistic that in the coming four months - by December, 2025 about 20 lakh metric tons of garbage will be removed from Okhla site and by 2028, there will be no garbage mountains in Delhi.

Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is responsible for disposal of about 10-12 thousand metric tons of garbage coming out of all the residential colonies and commercial areas of Delhi every day.

Nearly 32 percent of the garbage generated every day is compostable material. Other recycled materials include 6.6 percent paper, 1.5 percent plastic, 2.5 percent metal and other materials used in building constructions.

The Environment Minister took stock of all this and also talked to the officials on how to speed up this work. Minister Sirsa said: “If Pakistan can be destroyed, what is there in a mountain?

This Okhla landfill site is the oldest of garbage dumps. Efforts to remove the garbage accumulated at this landfill had begun first. Plants to generate electricity from garbage were set up in nearby areas and other measures for garbage disposal were taken.

During the environment minister’s visit today, he was accompanied by Delhi Mayor Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh. Talks were also held with officials of Okhla Landsite of Delhi Municipal Corporation. The work that was being done on garbage disposal was discussed with them.

Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa in the Delhi government, BJP MP from South Delhi Rambir Singh Bidhuri and Delhi Mayor Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh went to the garbage mountain to review the work progress and to assess how much time it will take to remove the garbage mountain.

Mayor Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh said: “Rekha Gupta of Delhi government, the Delhi Municipal Corporation, and the National Government at the center are like the triple engine government and everyone is working together.”

The minister pointed out that Okhla, Ghazipur and Bhalswa landfill sites are already packed to capacity and overflowing. A large-scale exercise for garbage disposal started in the year 2008 and the technology that was being used was outdated. As a result, more than three thousand metric tons of garbage is dumped every day at the Okhla landfill site in South Delhi and the plants installed there in 2008 to produce electricity from garbage were not able to dispose of even half of the garbage.

Not even half of the plantation work could be done at the site. Former Chairman of MCD's Garden Committee, Dharamvir, told that a plan had been prepared to cover the garbage heaps with trees by planting lots of trees around the three landfill sites located at Bhalswa, Ghazipur, Okhla.

Oxygen gas released from the trees would work to refine the poisonous gases like carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbon released in large quantities from the landfill and the poisonous gas and stench can be prevented from reaching the people living in the nearby residential areas. But due to lack of coordination between MCD and other departments even half the plantation work could not be achieved.

MCD officials had visited Nagpur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad several times in the past years to study the method of waste management for garbage disposal but they could not implement it properly.

Apart from delays in setting up a plant for garbage disposal, the biggest challenge before the MCD now is to get a place to set up a garbage processing plant near the landfill site.

Removing the garbage mountain was also on top of the agenda of the Aam Aadmi Party, which came to power in the MCD in the year 2022, but it did not happen.