New Delhi, Jun 2 (PTI) The Arvind Kejriwal government has prepared a nine-point action plan to prevent incidents of fire at landfill sites which includes a ban on the entry of ragpickers and the construction of peripheral roads for fire tenders, Environment Minister Gopal Rai said on Thursday.

Rai said officials of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi were asked to study a system installed in Mumbai to capture methane from the rotting waste and replicate it in the national capital to prevent fires at landfill sites.

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The wet waste dumped in a landfill produces methane when it rots. In hot weather conditions, methane catches fire spontaneously and the blaze spreads as it feeds on combustible material like textiles and plastics.

As part of the action plan, perforated pipes will be installed at the landfill sites to prevent the accumulation of the highly flammable methane gas.

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Vehicles engaged at the landfill sites will be fitted with spark arrestors to trap hot exhaust particles from combustion engines, he said.

Ragpickers will be banned and a boundary wall will be built to prevent unauthorised entries into the landfills, Rai said.

Suction-cum-jetting machines, an underground reservoir of 50,000 litres capacity and a peripheral road around landfill sites for fire tenders is also part of the plan.

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority will develop a standard operating procedure to prevent fire incidents, the minister said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)