The National Green Tribunal will inspect a retired army officer’s allegations of planes emptying human waste in his neighbourhood. Lt Gen (Retd) Satwant Singh Dahiya has alleged that planes fly above his neighbourhood in South Delhi and empty human waste.
He has asked for criminal proceedings and fines against commercial airlines for endangering the health of the residents of his neighbourhood and the NGT has asked for a senior environmental engineer to visit the former army man’s home and see if human refuse is splattered, as he alleges, on the walls outside.
The Aviation and Environment Ministries have also been asked to respond within two weeks to the complaint. Usually, the planes store human waste in special tanks which are disposed of by ground crew once the plane lands, but aviation officials acknowledge that lavatory leaks can occur in the air at times.
Singh says, “in the early morning, we found that walls and floors of terrace of our house splattered with large patches of excreta dumped by aircraft flying in front of Palam airport at night.” This is not the first time it has happened as he said that he had confronted the same problem at the same time last year and had been forced to clean and repaint his house.
“We are retired people and cannot afford to have this defacement everyday,” his appeal said.
