Status report by the MCD on processing of waste at Singhola and Bawana, Delhi, 07/03/2025
Status report of March 7, 2024 on behalf of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in compliance of NGT order, November 19, 2024.
An application was registered suo-motu on the basis of the newspaper report, November 4, 2024 published in Hindustan Times "New waste mounds creep up on capital". The news report highlighted the emergence of new waste mounds in Singhola and Bawana.
The report by the municipal corporation informed the court that MCD entered into a concession agreement with M/s DMSWSL on July 17, 2009 for a period of 20 years for the work of "Door to Door Collection, Transfer, Transportation, Developing an Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Processing Facility and Engineered Sanitary Landfill Facility" as per MSW (M&H) Rules 2000, for select zones in Delhi on a long-term Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis for municipal solid waste. For this project, a 100-acre plot of land was handed over to the concessionaire at Bawana. An engineered sanitary landfill has been developed on approximately 35 acres of land. The total intake of MSW at this facility is approximately 2300 TPD, out of which around 350-400 TPD is disposed of in the sanitary landfill as process rejects and WTE ash.
With respect to Singhola site, the report mentioned that after the slide / collapse of SLF Ghazipur in September 2017, a piece of land measuring 7.2 acres was allotted on a temporary basis for two years in the year April 2018 at village Singhola Khampur for diverting / disposing off the drain silt by DDA to East Delhi Municipal Corporation. By July 2022, approximately 9 lakh MT of silt had accumulated at the site. The silt was deposited by the Shahdara North and Shahdara South zones of MCD. In addition, the PWD and the Irrigation and Flood Control Department of GNCTD also deposited drain silt at the site. Further dumping would have caused the risk of sliding / slipping of silt towards adjoining area, thus dumping of silt was stopped at the Singhola site in July 2022.
MCD awarded the work of bio-mining and disposal of processed material on November 1, 2024 for 9 lakh MT of quantity at the site. Till date around 2 lakh MT has been bio mined and disposed off from site and complete work is targeted to be completed by August 2025.
MCD is undertaking concerted efforts by actively working on bio-mining the silt to address the environmental concerns associated with it.