Delhi civic body seeks land for new waste processing plants as landfills near capacity

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has sought land from the Delhi Development Authority and the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board to build waste-processing plants as it struggles to manage the capital's daily garbage output, PTI reported.

Delhi generates about 13,500 tonnes of municipal waste every day, but the MCD processes only 57 per cent of it. The remaining 5,800 tonnes, or about 43 per cent, is left untreated and sent to the city's saturated landfill sites.

An MCD official told the news agency that the civic body had identified four locations for the proposed facilities: Ghummanhera and Kharkhari Nahar in the Najafgarh zone, and Rani Khera and Sultanpur Dabas in the Narela zone. The corporation wrote to the DDA on September 28 seeking land for the plants.

Officials said the MCD had also identified land under its ownership for waste-processing facilities as part of efforts to increase the city's treatment capacity.

The corporation has been processing accumulated garbage through bio-mining at its landfill sites. However, fresh waste continues to be dumped there, making it difficult to prevent new garbage mounds from forming and increasing the need for more processing capacity.