A massive fire was reported between Pusta Road and Elevated Road near Hindon River around 6:30 pm on Tuesday. The fire reportedly occurred in piles of garbage dumped there ostensibly lit by someone to dispose off the waste.
A passerby, Virendra Indoliya, who was on his way to his home in Raj Nagar Extension spotted the flames and reported to the police. The police in turn informed the fire officials. But the fire officials took more than half an hour to reach the site.
After landing at the site, Indoliya recounted that the fire officials managed to douse the flames with the help of a water tanker from Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) after hour-long struggle.
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Indoliya claimed that information about such incidents are generally shared with the authorities instantaneously but their dilly dallying at times worsens the situation.
“Neither they are able to control illegal dumping of garbage, nor do they act when they are informed about such eventuality," he lamented.
Narrating his own experience, he said "On Monday, I had reported an incident of garbage burning in front of Jyoti super village (a housing society in Raj Nagar Extension). And today again I noticed smoke coming out from the same site.
This clearly indicates that the authorities are taking no action to curb the practice of garbage burning despite being reported about it several times on a regular basis, he rued.
Those indulging in garbage burning mostly do so during night to aviod public attention. The practice is polluting the already polluted air of the city. People going for morning walk are forced to inhale toxic fumes that emanate from the burnt garbage and linger on in the atmosphere.
As per Graded Action Response Plan (GRAP) guidelines, which is currently in force in Delhi-NCR, garbage burning is banned.
On the one hand, the government and district administration are both going all out against farmers for burning stubble, while on the other hand, they are lax to check garbage burning taking place daily under their nose. This exposes contradiction in their approach.
