Thick smoke continues to billow from Noida’s green waste dump

The fire at the Noida Sector 32 dumping ground continued to burn for the third consecutive day on Friday while a blanket of thick smoke permeated the neighbouring sectors 31, 35, and 36. The Noida police have arrested a 46-year-old man for starting the fire. However, the police and the Noida authority have given different versions of how and why the man started the fire.

Noida authority additional chief executive officer Vandana Tripathi said the fire began after the accused attempted to set himself ablaze. She made the claim while speaking to Noida MLA Pankaj Singh, who visited the site on Friday. On Wednesday, the Noida authority had said that the man had poured oil on the green waste to set himself ablaze. But police have said that the man, who was drunk, threw a bidi in the dry green waste, which ignited the blaze.

“The man, 46, who is from Odisha and is employed as a plumber with a contractor who works with the Noida authority, threw a bidi (cigarette) in the dry green waste, which ignited the fire,” said Shyam Babu Shukla, station house officer of the Sector 24 police station. The case was registered under sections 324(4) (offence of mischief), 270 (dealing with public nuisance), and 326(f) (use of fire and explosives to damage property) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

But Tripathi said, “The man torched the dry green waste to set himself ablaze by jumping on it. Local shopkeepers and the supervisor of the dumping ground nabbed him and handed him over to police.”

The dumping ground, near the Elevated Road which runs parallel to Maharaja Agrasen Marg, has seen two big fire outbreaks previously. On March 25, 2024, a fire broke out that took a week and 3.5 million litres of water to extinguish. In May 2023, a fire at the same site burned for six days. The cause of the fire in both cases was a man throwing a lit cigarette on the dry waste.

When HT visited the spot at 2pm on Friday, there was only one fire tender, three water tankers and six JCBs involved in firefighting efforts. This was a change from Thursday, when six fire brigades, four water tankers, and three JCBs were involved in firefighting, and Wednesday, when 15 fire tenders with 76 firefighters were pressed into service when the fire broke out. Officials said that more than 400 waters tankers have been used so far.

On Friday, thick smoke from the dumping yard continued to slow down firefighting efforts and choke the lungs of residents in neighbouring sectors.

“I don’t think the Noida authority plans to douse the fire in two or three days. Every year we face a similar issue in March. Thick smoke has continued to fill our lungs for the last three days,” said Prakash Singh, a resident of Sector 40.

Authority officials said that all the smoke was “comparatively not injurious” as it was coming out from “bio waste” and not “plastic waste”. They said that plastic waste was not dumped at the dumping yard in question but at another dumping yard in Noida Sector 145.

Noida MLA Singh, on his site visit, directed authority officials to “cover the area using a fence and search for an alternative to prevent dumping of green waste in the heart of the city.”

“Soon we will finalise a tender after which the contractor will collect all the green waste and share the revenue with the authority. The green waste will be used in making electricity. Until the finalisation of the tender, we must cover the area,” said ACEO Tripathi.