In what could be a disturbing report for west Delhi residents, Mayapuri locality still has radioactive contamination, says a Greenpeace field survey. “The investigation has identified six hotspots with one of them registering more than 5,000 times natural background radiation,” Jan Vande Putte, a Greenpeace radiation safety expert, said in New Delhi on Friday.

The radiation level in some spots of the locality is in excess of the annual dose limit set by the Indian standards. “In the hotspot with 5,000 times background radiation, a person would receive the maximum permissible annual dose of 1 millisievert in just a matter of two hours,” Putte told Governance Now.

The Greenpeace team, led by radiation experts Stan Vincent and Jan Vande Putte, found unacceptable levels of radiation with the help of radiation monitors gamma spectrometer and a redalert gamma dosimeter. They scanned the area on Friday morning and found the radiation has been spreading to other areas. “There could be small pieces of cobalt which are invisible to the naked eye," Putte said.

It will only expose locals to health hazards, Putte further added. According to him, “It poses long term health problems like cancer.”

The report comes after the government gave a clean chit to Mayapuri’s scrap yard. Greenpeace sought transparency and accountability from the government in this regard. Karuna Raina, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace India, told Governance Now: “These failures are a serious breach of nationally and internationally accepted procedures. The Greenpeace team went to Mayapuri to verify whether the claim made by the government guaranteeing that this area is safe is really true.”

Greenpeace also said that the information has been shared with the authorities and local people. “There is no response from the government side yet even after presenting them the report of field survey," said Raina.

Earlier this month, an Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) team claimed to have removed eight bunches of metal scraps containing sources of Cobalt-60 radioactive isotope and transported the material to the Narora Atomic Power Station in Uttar Pradesh.

Adding to the accountability, the Greenpeace criticised government’s move to introduce the civilian nuclear liability bill in the Lok Sabha on the last day of the budget session. Raina also noted that accidents like Mayapuri are not covered in the bill.

Last month, the leakage in Mayapuri killed one person and injured several. The substance in question was auctioned as a scrap by Delhi University's chemistry department two months ago.