Why Ghaziabad’s successive smart city failures are not surprising ???

The overpowering stench of garbage in Pratap Vihar is most probably the answer to the question in the minds of residents Ghaziabad — why did the city fail in three attempts to be on the list of smart cities? Although the report card on the failure to make the cut is awaited, waste management — an important smart city criterion — is obviously the city’s Achilles’ heel.

Thousands of residents in the vicinity of Pratap Vihar landfill site live amid an unbearable stench and health hazard. Tonnes of garbage dumped every day has turned the site into a mountain of waste as high as a five-storey building and visible from a distance.

The only assurance the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC), which is termed apathetic by residents facing a daily health risk from the garbage, can give is an alternative landfill site will be functional in Galand within two years.

Spread across an area of 13 acres, the Pratap Vihar landfill site came up in 2005 and currently about 1,100 metric tons of civic waste is dumped every day from all the five zones of the city.

The GMC, which is the custodian of the site, has outsourced the management of the site to a private company, which is paid Rs 35 lakh per month.

“It is such a waste of money and even after spending so much the condition of the landfill site is awful,” said Alok Kumar, resident and patron of FedAOA.

“For years now we are forced to live in a place where each morning begins with the pathetic sight of tonnes of waste, not to mention the stench it raises,” said D K Maurya, a resident of Niho Scottish Garden, a society in Indirapuram’s Ahimsa Khand 2 facing the Pratap Vihar landfill site. There are close to half a dozen societies in the area where residents get up with the same sick feeling every morning.

Adity Srivastava, a resident of Cloud 9 society, said, “The stench from the garbage compels us to shut our doors even on a pleasant day. I feel miserable every morning when I open the doors for some fresh air but only get to smell burning garbage.”

Resentment is growing among residents of societies in Ahimsa Khand 2 to the point of planning a protest to be heard. They want relocation of the dumping ground, but that is easier said than done. “With the monsoon round the corner, the growing humidity is intensifying the stench and every year it is the same old story. Now we are planning an agitation,” said Debashish Sahoo, resident of Arihant Harmony.

“Kites and other birds could be seen hovering over the dumping ground all the time and it such an awful sight,” said Anil Sharma, another resident.

Bhavna Saxena of Cloud 9 said the garbage pile in the rear of her society is often burned, leading to the emission of poisonous gases.

“I am a sincere tax payer like many other fellow residents, but being forced to breathe in polluted air. The authorities concerned will perhaps wake up from their slumber only if their loved ones are put to such risk,” Saxena said.

On its part, the civic body blamed the situation on the plan for an alternative landfill site being stuck in litigation. Municipal commissioner C P Singh said, “This is a stalemate for us as the Dundehera landfill site which we had planned to develop is caught in litigation. Hence we are forced to dump civic waste at the Pratap Vihar landfill site.”

“But I assure you that it we will soon be shifting the landfill site to Galand on the outskirts of the city where we have already acquired 18 acres of land to develop a solid waste plant,” Singh said.

He added, “We have invited expression of interest and if things go according to plan, the Galand solid waste plant will be functional in two years.”

Courtesy: realty.economictimes.indiatimes.com