The showcase city of Gurgaon is slowly turning into one of the pollution hotspots of India, thanks to mountain-high piles of untreated waste, unending traffic jams and rampant illegal construction.
The gigantic mass of untreated waste lying at the defunct Bandhwari treatment plant, along the Gurgaon-Faridabad expressway, can at any point trigger a health scare in the city.
Twenty lakh tonnes of waste has collected in the plant that was shut down by the authorities few years before. However, the civic authorities kept dumping garbage at the plant.
According to a report from the Central Pollution Control Board, which was forwarded to the National Green Tribunal, constant dumping has created a 65-m-high mountain of untreated garbage at the plant. Also, the contaminated water from the plant was polluting the region's aquifers or groundwater.
Besides untreated waste, construction has been going on at more than 400 sites in gross violation of environmental norms. Traffic jams, too, are on the rise.
The residents are worried about the deteriorating living conditions in the city.
RWA president of DLF Qutab Enclave, RS Rathi, said, “We are really concerned about the rising levels of pollution in the city. The Bandhwari treatment plant is a major source of pollution. We have raised this issue before the authorities several times. But they have just ignored the matter. They keep saying that they would start the plant soon, but nothing has happened so far. The previous government was not interested in the issue, not is the present government.”
Sandeep Virmani, a resident of DLF Phase 1, told City Spidey, “Pollution has reached alarming levels in the city. The authorities must wake up from their slumber — and soon!”
