NOIDA: In a major victory for residents of Sector 137, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday ordered Noida Authority to build and make functional a waste-to-energy plant in Sector 123 in the next six months and then shift all dumped garbage from a vacant plot in Sector 138A. This landfill site is close to Sector 137.

The order by a principal bench of NGT, headed by Justice Swatanter Kumar, came days after the green court banned dumping of garbage on the vacant plot in Sector 138A. Noida Authority had been using this plot for the past one year to illegally dispose of waste.

The order came in the wake of a petition filed in August this year by Gaurav Chaudhary, a resident of Sector 137, objecting to the dumping activity in Sector 138A. Choudhary claimed the illegal dumping of waste posed pollution and health risks to over half-a-dozen housing complexes located in Sector 137.