New Delhi, Jul 8 (PTI) The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has decided to give away "inert soil" produced at its landfill sites free of cost to public, officials said on Friday.

The move comes a week after Lt Governor V K Saxena had describing the landfill sites in Delhi as "grave health hazards" and a "national shame". In a Twitter post, he had also reached out to the people and sought their ideas that could help efforts by authorities in getting rid of these "unseemly mountains of garbage".

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The national capital has three landfill sites -- Ghazipur, Bhalaswa and Okhla -- that have turned into huge garbage mountains.

"MCD is operating three landfill sites in the city. It is working in a time-bound manner to process the mounds of garbage lying at these landfill sites. Inert material produced at these sites of Delhi will be provided to citizens, land-owning agencies and contractors," the civic body said in a statement.

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'Inert' is a soil-like material, which can be used for filling in of low-lying areas, it said.

"Working in this direction, MCD has deployed trommel machines at landfill sites which are processing legacy waste via bio-mining. After the processing of waste through bio-mining, a lot of inert soil is obtained. MCD has decided to give away this soil free of cost to citizens and agencies. Citizens and agencies will have to deploy their own means to lift this soil," the statement said.

The MCD said it hoped that agencies and public at large will take full benefit of this scheme.

"It will be a win-win situation for all stakeholders. While it will help the corporation in disposing huge quantity of inert soil lying at Okhla, Bhalaswa and Gazipur landfill sites, and free up more space for deployment of more trommel machines, at the same time it will benefit construction companies and private individuals in filling up low-lying areas before starting construction," it said.

MCD officials on June 11 had said they have decided to deploy drones to map the elevation of landfills and also monitor the reduction in its height along with other parameters.

A plan in this connection has been prepared and the project will soon be implemented, they had said.

Meanwhile, in another statement, the MCD said it has taken up a "unique initiative" of 'Waste Collective Responsibility Drive' with the support of "Blue Planet Skills to bring about a large-scale, environmentally positive behavioural change in communities".

The MCD has also launched a 'Zero Waste Colony' campaign in its Central Zone, officials said.

This is a unique concept which endeavours to streamline the management of municipal solid waste and drastically reduce the logistical cost, presently being incurred by the MCD, they said.

"Main focus of this campaign is processing of wet waste generated by the respective colonies through home and community composting, and inculcating the principle of 5Rs (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot). While the primary focus of the initiative is composting, it is not limited to that. There are other elements such as plastic waste management, beautification, backlane transformation, 3R initiatives etc which are critical to the success of this campaign," the civic body said.

Also, the MCD on Friday organised a mega PTM (parents teachers meet) at 1,530 schools across all the 12 zones, the corporation 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)