New Delhi: To curb illegal dumping of construction and demolition (C&D) waste on city roads ahead of winter, when air pollution levels typically rise, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has made all 125 secondary C&D waste collection centres operational.MCD officials said, as of Oct 1, 118 centres now have signage and barricades or protective sheets, while 116 have water-sprinkling arrangements to control dust. As many as 113 sites have been equipped with 360-degree cameras to discourage dumping outside the designated areas.“Of the 125 sites, 88 are registered on the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) portal. All arrangements have been made at these secondary centres. Malba is collected departmentally and transported to processing plants by the respective concessionaires,” an official said.To discourage unauthorised dumping, the civic body has reiterated that up to 20 metric tonnes (MT) of malba can be deposited at these centres free of cost.“Delhi Malba Collection App, launched in March this year, is fully operational. People can submit requests for malba removal, and the JEs concerned are mapped on the app to act on them. After receiving a request, MCD vehicles or registered transporters collect the waste from the applicant’s premises and transport it to the secondary C&D site free of cost. For quantities exceeding 20 MT, the waste generator has to pay the processing fee as the material is sent to the nearest C&D waste processing plant. Earlier, the free lifting facility was limited to 1 MT, but looking at the limited response, the quantity has been increased to 20 MT,” the official added.Zone-wise details of the secondary collection centres are available on the MCD C&D portal.MCD has four C&D waste processing plants at Burari, Rani Khera, Bakkarwala and Shastri Park, with a combined capacity of 5,000 tonnes per day (TPD). Work is underway on a fifth plant at Tehkhand. Delhi generates approximately 6,000 MT of C&D waste daily.“The plants process malba into coarse sand, fine sand, recycled aggregates and screened soil. While screened soil is used to fill low-lying areas, recycled aggregates and stone dust are used to make paver blocks, tiles and concrete blocks for footpaths, berms and boundary walls, and other civil works. Efforts are also underway to improve processing efficiency at all four plants,” the official said.MCD expects the integrated system of collection centres, mobile app, junior engineers, registered transporters, concessionaires and scientific processing plants to improve waste collection and processing, curb unauthorised dumping and maximise recovery.Meanwhile, as part of its air-pollution mitigation measures, MCD Tuesday flagged off 12 newly procured truck-mounted multipurpose vehicles equipped with anti-smog guns, water sprinklers and jetting systems. Each vehicle has a water tank capacity of 7,000 litres.“The multi-functional systems will also enable more effective road washing, drain jetting and cleaning of public toilets,” mayor Pravesh Wahi said.
