Stench and smoke coming from the unauthorised garbage dump has made the air in the area unsuitable for breathing, and previous attempts at solving the issue have not yielded any proper result.
An unauthorised garbage dump that has come up in the last two to three years near Gaur Green City, a residential society in Indirapuram, has been a cause for concern for residents. Residents say rag pickers and those who dump garbage there set the garbage on fire, which keeps burning for weeks at a stretch. The stench and smoke from the garbage have made the air unsuitable for breathing.
On May 14, residents and members of the newly formed apartment owners association (AOA) held a meeting to decide a strategy to get rid of the unauthorised garbage dump. The AOA decided to submit fresh complaints to the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA), district administration, National Green Tribunal (NGT), National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the local MLA.
Malay Mazumder, general secretary of the AOA, told City Spidey, “Residents have been complaining about the issue since day one. The flats facing the area have to keep their windows and doors shut in order to keep the stench and smoke out of their homes.”
On a different note, Mazumdar added that they would take to Twitter and tweet the issue to the CM office, PMO and other important Twitter handles. They would also connect the issue with the Swachh Bharat movement.
Jigyasu Pant, the previous president of the society’s AOA, said that they had already knocked on all doors, held protests, and, at times, had extinguished the fire in the garbage with hired water tankers, but the problem hasn’t been yet solved properly.
On earlier occasions, when City Spidey had contacted officials of GDA, the civic agency responsible for maintenance of Indirapuram, they had said that the Authority could not act on the issue as the land where the garbage dump had come up belonged to NHAI and did come not come under the Authority’s purview. The AOA also received similar responses.
The AOA had then written to NHAI over the issue, but to no avail. At one point of time, the AOA had even decided to post a security guard in the area to stop dumping and burning of garbage. The plan was scrapped fearing the safety of the guard as residents say that an organised garbage disposal ring is in place, which charges money from shopkeepers and vendors for disposing off the garbage.
When City Spidey spoke to Atul Kumar, additional district magistrate (ADM) of Ghaziabad, whom the residents had apprised of the issue, he said that the procedure for taking action has already been initiated and the problem would be solved soon.
