Green Belt buckles under DVB8217;s flyash

NEW DELHI, April 23: Delhi Vidyut Board has cynically vandalised some 70 acres of land that has been earmarked as a Green Belt around Apollo...

NEW DELHI, April 23: Delhi Vidyut Board has cynically vandalised some 70 acres of land that has been earmarked as a Green Belt around Apollo Hospital on Mathura Road near Sarita Vihar. With scant concern for the environmental hazards and the consequent threat to the well-being of residents of the area, DVB has dumped huge amounts of flyash that is churned out as a byproduct of its thermal power plants.

In November last, Apollo Hospital CEO CDD Reddy wrote to DVB informing them of its outrageous lack of concern about the devastating impact of dumping flyash in the designated Green Belt. The flyash piled up, the letter said, was as high as three feet. 8220;8230; no plant can survive in three feet deep flyash. Furthermore, the rain water drainage created by the irrigation department of the government of Delhi has been back filled. This has to be restored with proper slopes of the surrounding area so that rain water flows freely to the nearby Agra Canal and ensure non-stagnation of water in patches to avoid breeding of mosquitoes and the consequent spreading of epidemics of Dengue, Malaria, etc.

8220;The flyash is an environmental and human health hazard particularly to the patients in the hospital and general public living in the surrounding areas such as Sarita Vihar, Jasola village, etc.

8220;As you are aware, the inhabitants of these areas inhaling the air mixed with fine dust of flyash will be exposed to serious diseases such as asthma, bronchitis and lung cancer.

8220;The rain water percolating through the flyash and forming the subsoil water will harm the health of the inhabitants in these areas, since the dissolve flyash contains numerous oxides and heavy metals such as antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, flourine, lead, mercury 8230;. The ground water and surface water contamination by leaching of the toxic metals in the flyash will ultimately result in ground water becoming unfit for human consumption and as such the water drawn through the tubewells will not be fit for human consumption,8221; the Apollo Hospital letter to DVB read.

For good measure, the letter was accompanied by an exhaustive and startling report by the hospital chain8217;s own expert on occupational and environmental health, Dr Homi R. Mehta, titled 8220;Harmful effects of flyash8221;.

Clearly, the expert report and the letter of protest to DVB have fallen on granite ears.