Garbage trucks lay south Delhi park to waste

NEW DELHI: Kush Sharma, a precocious 12-year-old, tied a handkerchief around his face and began to play cricket, even as his friend, Mohammad Shakil, 10, warily eyed a guard with a gun hanging around the park. Having been denied their daily romps at the Kamal

Park

in Safdarjung Enclave for three weeks now, the boys had dared to venture out with their cricket bats. “Obviously, a demon has set evil his eyes on our park. It was so beautiful earlier,” said the irrepressible Sharma.

The demon actually is the South Delhi Municipal

Corporation

. Over a dozen of its contracted

garbage

dumpers and auto-tippers took over the local park 20 days ago, even unloaded malodorous trash there. The security guard posted there said, “We have been ordered to protect the vehicles from being damaged by people.” Indeed, the residents of colonies around the park are irate. The children no longer have an open space for games and the senior citizens have stopped going for their morning constitutionals.

Lush green and spread across 2.5 acres, the park is the largest in Safdarjung Enclave. It was where residents found peace through yoga, walks, physical exercises, laughter clubs and social interactions with neighbours. They also congregated there for yoga classes, Ramlila and other religious and social functions. “I stopped going for my morning walk the day I saw the foul-smelling garbage trucks parked there,” grumbled Shashi Verma.

Sunil Agnihotri, general secretary of the RWA at B4B Safdarjung Enclave, said, “Only some of the trucks are loaded with garbage, but even those that halt here after unloading their loads elsewhere still spread harmful bacteria and make the air unfit for breathing.” A marriage reception scheduled for October 2 was cancelled after the park turned into a parking lot for the filth ferries.

“A few truckloads of garbage were dumped in the park and tamped to make the surface harder to allow movement of trucks during rains, but it is a health disaster,” complained Pankaj Agrawal, general secretary of Efforts Group, a residents’ association. “We have reached out to the local MLA, the area councillor and SDMC officials for help, but nobody has come forward,” Agrawal added.

Adjacent to the occupied park lies Delhi Police Public School. It is anxious now that its 1,200 students and 150 staff members have been exposed to the hazards of garbage and construction

waste

lying in the open near the school. “Our students used the park for various sports activities,” said a note from the school. Similar concerns about health risks were expressed by members of the Safdarjung Club, which is located close Kamal Park.

On Tuesday, the various RWAs of Safdarjung Enclave jointly raised a voice against the encroachment of the park and decided they would stop paying property tax if the dumpers were not removed and the park restored to its original status.

Anil Gupta, chief of Dakshin Dilli Swachh Initiatives Limited, a private firm that owns the garbage dumpers, explained that the parking of trash removal vehicles in a central location helped improve the efficiency of daily waste collection. “After due permission of SDMC, the park was turned into a parking station for the dumpers that collect garbage from the civic body’s central zone,” Gupta maintained.

A senior SDMC official, who declined to be named, assured, “The park has not been permanently allotted to the private agency. It will not turn into a parking station and we will soon remove the vehicles. It is not our intention to take over the park.” The residents cannot wait for this to become a reality.