1 week Ago By Soumya Pillai
New Delhi: Residents of Sukhdev Vihar have been waging a legal battle against the Okhla waste-to-energy (WTE) plant for the past 15 years. But the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)—the country’s apex pollution monitoring agency—told the National Green Tribunal (NGT): “The Okhla waste-to-energy plant is safe.” That was in 2016.
Even today, despite fly ash visible in Okhla’s air, the authorities maintain that the plant poses no health risk. Apart from the pollution in the air, the fly ash and soil samples from the area also showed cadmium 19 times higher than the safe limits set by the US’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), manganese 11 times higher and arsenic 10 times higher than the permissible limits. The Okhla waste-to-energy plant, owned by the Jindal Group, exposed nearly a million people around the plant to toxic emissions containing dangerous metals like cadmium, lead and arsenic, according to a report by The New York Times which ran its own tests.
But CPCB officials are standing their ground even today like they did eight years ago. In 2020, the Board conducted its own tests along with the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). The presence of metals in the bottom ash and fly ash in the samples from the Okhla WTE—including cadmium, manganese, arsenic and lead—were mostly “below detection levels”.
This stands contrary to the NYT’s investigation findings. “Waste-to-energy plants are safe. As per the last inspection, all the boilers in the plant had operational pollution control devices.
These reports (referring to NYT ) are creating unnecessary panic,” a CPCB official told ThePrint. In fact, the Delhi government has sought permission to increase the capacity of the Narela WTE plant to solve the mounting problem of waste in Delhi. The request is under process.
ThePrint reached the Jindal Group via email for a comment. This report will be updated as and when a response is received. At Okhla’s Haji Basti, Mehrunisa Begam, 62, wipes her grandson’s face, who has come back from his playtime.
The neighbourhood is barely a few metres away from the WTE and is perpetually enveloped in a thick, dusty layer. “He is not this dark,” she says, referring to the child’s complexion. “It is all this dust,” she adds, continuing to rub off the fly ash particles from his face and neck.
But the problem is much bigger than just superficial dust on children’s faces. Many residents suffer from prolonged and deteriorating respiratory problems, cardiac issues and skin infections. Though there is no study directly linking the plant to these illnesses, doctors say that exposure to high pollution levels may have had a role to play.
Dr Sarvesh Upadhyay, a general physician who runs a private clinic in Sarita Vihar and Jasola Vihar, said that the dioxins and furans have been classified as carcinogenic by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which can increase the risk of cancers on prolonged exposure. “Such exposure can cause reproductive problems and cause developmental issues in newborns. This can become a health epidemic in this area.
” He called for the government to conduct a fresh health assessment of residents in these areas to understand how the plant was hampering their health. The 2020 CPCB report allegedly severely underplayed the levels of particulate matter in the location of the WTE and the nearby residential locality, Sukhdev Vihar. ThePrint has a copy of the CPCB report.
Delhi-based environmentalist Vimlendu Jha said that the studies conducted by the government around the WTE plant site was “severely greenwashed”. He said that the 2020 CPCB report was unscientific and seemingly an attempt to push the plant as a “green technology”. “There was always a push for WTEs and the studies seem to have fit conveniently to their narrative.
There is no way that a site with such high fly ash does not have high readings of heavy metals. Okhla is also one of the 13 pollution hotspots in the government’s own list, which means that at any given time, the pollution levels there are higher than the city’s average,” Jha explained. According to the CPCB-DPCC report, the PM10 (coarse particles in the air) recordings were 72.
33ug/m3 in Okhla and 85.66ug/m3 in Sukhdev Vihar, within the permissible limits of 100ug/m3. PM2.
5 levels (ultrafine particles) were reported to be only 39ug/m3 at the Okhla site, while it was only marginally above the permissible limit of 60ug/m3, at 78ug/m3 in Sukhdev Vihar. “The worst affected by such emissions are the poor in the city. These plants are located dangerously close to such neighbourhoods.
This shows the low value that the government holds to their lives,” Jha said. In 2022, the Timarpur-Okhla Waste Management Company Ltd, the registered owner of the WTE plant, while proposing to expand the plant, said that it was the “most appropriate method for managing municipal solid waste.” Also Read: ‘Jab ghar mein jeena mushkil ho’ — what it’s like living near Delhi’s Okhla waste-to-energy plant The residents of Sukhdev Vihar, an upscale neighbourhood in southeast Delhi, have been fighting a legal battle against the Okhla WTE for years now.
They have repeatedly reiterated the harmful health impacts that the neighbourhood faces because of the plant. But their pleas have gone unheard. “People have sold their houses or moved away to better neighbourhoods for health concerns.
The plant is located so close to residential localities that almost everyone who has lived here for a considerable period is experiencing some kind of respiratory issue,” said Dhruv Ahuja, a resident. Sukhdev Vihar residents first filed a writ petition before the Delhi High Court in 2009 to relocate the plant away from a residential neighbourhood. In 2013, the case was transferred to the NGT.
After hearing the case for four years, the green tribunal allowed the plant to function despite repeated claims by the residents that it was releasing harmful toxins, including heavy metals, dioxins, and furans. The plant owners were let off with a fine of Rs 25 lakh as environmental compensation for past violations. Sarita Devi, a resident of Tajpur Pahari, another neighbourhood near the plant, works as a house help in south Delhi’s Moti Bagh.
While most of her day goes by without any issue, as soon as she reaches home after work in the evening, she goes into a fit of cough on most days. There is a persistent smell of burning plastic that lingers in the air. “I don’t need any monitoring station to tell me what the pollution levels are.
I can tell the pollution levels are high by the intensity of my cough. Maybe the government should hire me as a human pollution monitor,” she says, with dry humour. Delhi-based independent waste management expert Swati Singh Sambyal explained that more than the plant itself, the composition of waste that goes into it is the problem.
“Mixed waste currently going into the plant leads to incomplete combustion. When you have everything from recyclables to household waste being dumped in the plant, the incinerator’s performance is affected. This is what makes the plant more polluting,” she explained.
She said such plants are designed for non-recyclable waste with high calorific value—1,500kcal/kg or higher. Sambyal also pointed out that there must be some system in place to ensure that the monitoring around these plants is made more transparent. “There is no system where the residents can access the emissions of these plants.
This information must be made public to ensure transparency in its operation,” she asserted. (Edited by Tony Rai) Also Read: Farm fires caused just 4% of Delhi’s air pollution, vehicles main culprit, finds pre-Diwali analysis var ytflag = 0;var myListener = function() {document.removeEventListener('mousemove', myListener, false);lazyloadmyframes();};document.
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