The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to hand over two of the four earmarked landfill sites to the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) without any further delay.
The Court asked the NDMC to take possession of the site at the Sultanpur Dabas village at the earliest and file a status report on how it proposes to utilise it within a timeframe.
It also directed the agencies concerned to convene a meeting on transfer of another site at Mandi village to the SDMC immediately.
Later, the Court asked the civic bodies and the land development authority to file separate affidavits about the transfer of the two sites to the civic bodies. The matter will now come up for hearing on August 7.
Earlier, the DDA informed the Court that it had identified the two sites and the process was on to hand over their possession to the local bodies concerned.
The Court had on an earlier date directed the DDA to convene a meeting of the various agencies concerned regarding the landfill site under the jurisdiction of the NDMC.
The East Delhi Municipal Corporation, meanwhile, informed the Court that it had identified a piece of land near Sonia Vihar for the landfill site. The Court asked the authorities concerned to hold a meeting for handing over the land to the civic body.
The three municipal corporations for the moment have demanded 600 acre of land for new garbage dumping sites.
The Delhi Master Plan-2021 has provided for 1,500 acre of land for landfill sites.
The Supreme Court had in 2010 directed the DDA to make land available to the local bodies within three months so that they could shift dumping of garbage from the existing saturated landfill sites.
The civic bodies had last year informed the Court that the situation had reached such a point that with each passing day they were finding it increasingly difficult to operate the present landfill sites. However, they said, since there was no other option, they had been forced to continue to use these sites.
