Okhla landfill now looks green
New Delhi: 58 workers slogging for 10 months on two shifts along with resources provided by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) have now managed to convert a major portion of the Okhla Landfill Site into pleasing stretches of greenery and managed to bring down the oversaturated garbage mound's height by around 20 metres.
The municipality started a remediation programme a few months back to clean up the 58m-tall hillock of garbage on recommendations from IIT, Delhi, and now, with one side of the hillock already full of fresh grass, the mound has come down to 38m. The SDMC has said that its goal is to bring it down to 30m.
The municipality said that the remediation work has been undertaken in a scientific manner in order to achieve result-oriented objectives by deploying heavy-duty bulldozers and excavators. The Okhla landfill has seen dumping for 23 years and now the SDMC's work seems to have yielded results within a year.
SDMC officials on Tuesday called it a "big success story" that will remain unbelievable until people see what the mound looks like. With work on one side of the landfill site completed, they said that the other side of the former ugly mound of waste will also soon be transformed into a lush green area.
Officials that it is a monumental task to achieve what SDMC and its workers have managed to, precisely because of the challenges involved in the project.
They said that 16-metres of sloped roads had to be built around the landfill at precisely 22 degrees so that it does not collapse on itself.
The standard 'doob' grass has planted on the slopes. More than 70 percent of the resurfacing and slope stabilisation work has been completed and grass has been planted around 7,000 sqm.
While the heatwave made for difficult working conditions, monsoon will make it easier for the grass to be planted.
It is also proposed to lay a pipeline from the Okhla Wastewater Treatment Plant to enable treated effluent water to be used to maintain the greenery.
The slope stabilisation work is also near completion. This will provide an opportunity to SDMC to develop the site on the lines of an eco-park.
