NDMC to invite global tenders

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 23

With fire continuing at the Bhalswa landfill, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) today announced a slew of measures, including inviting a global tender for landfill remediation, for managing the situation.

Mayor Adesh Gupta, accompanied by Municipal Commissioner Madhup Vyas, Engineer-in-Chief Vijay Prakash and other senior officials of the north corporation and senior police officer, took stock of the situation at the landfill site.

It has been decided that a global tender would soon be invited for remediation of the Bhalswa landfill site besides strengthening the barbed wire, deploying police to restrict entry of ragpickers and night vigil by the staff stationed at the site.

“The Bhalswa landfill site is spread over 70 acre, rising 62 meter. About 2,000 metric tonne of garbage is being dumped on it on a daily basis and currently it has 80 lakh metric tonne of garbage,” the mayor was quoted as saying in an NDMC statement. He has also directed officials to expedite the proper treatment of garbage.

“A consultancy firm has been hired for remediation of the Bhalswa landfill site, which has submitted the initial report on it. The firm has done boring at 28 points of the dump to study the culture of garbage. As per the received report, it is being ascertained that the garbage is 12-meter deep below the ground,” Gupta said.

The mayor said the consultancy firm would be submitting its final report by the end of the year, based on which the NDMC would be releasing a global tender for work on slope stabilisation, leachate (dirty water) treatment, bio-mining (segregation of garbage) and capping at the Bhalswa landfill site.

The move came a day after Environment Minister Imran Hussain directed the three municipal corporations to work on preventing incidents of fire at landfill sites and expedite the work of the scientifically-designed sanitary landfill sites and waste to energy plants for better disposal and processing of waste in Delhi.

Hussain also told them to maintain logbooks for recording the incidents of fire and action taken thereon and the Delhi Fire Service to depute a fire tender exclusively to handle future fire incidents at the Bhalswa landfill site.

Consequently, four fire tenders have been dedicated by the fire department for the site while the NDMC has deployed its staff, full bulldozers and two excavators at the Bhalswa site to manage and regulate the garbage round-the-clock.