The air across the Bandhwari landfill in Gurugram is thick with the stench of decay. “We earn our dwelling right here, however at what value to our well being?” asks Joginder, a supervisor on the web site, as he watches sludge and filth spill onto the Gurugram-Faridabad freeway. Only a stone’s throw away lies Mangar village, lower than 35 km from Delhi.
Landfills in India have been meant to carry solely processed waste, however websites like Bandhwari, with their towering trash heaps, have turn out to be ticking time bombs on account of years of uncared for waste segregation and administration. Any rubbish left for over three months is labelled “legacy waste”, a tag that now defines most of Bandhwari. The Haryana authorities has set December 31, 2024, because the deadline to clear the location, however it’s turning out to be one other in a collection of unfulfilled guarantees.
Bandhwari is only one piece of a much bigger drawback. For the reason that launch of Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 in 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to eradicate India’s “mountains of rubbish”, promising to clear legacy waste and make cities garbage-free. The Ministry of Housing and City Affairs even vowed to create a dashboard to trace progress throughout landfill websites in India.
As per the info displayed on the mission’s web site, of the two,424 dumpsites recognized throughout the nation with over 1,000 tonnes of legacy waste, remediation has been accomplished at 470 websites and is in progress at 1,224 websites whereas it stays unaddressed at 730 websites.
Joginder, a supervisor on the Bandhwari Landfill and a resident of Mangar village.
| Picture Credit score:
Shubhangi Derhgawen.
Bandhwari serves as a stark reminder of unfulfilled authorities guarantees. Below the Swachh Bharat Mission City (SBM-U) phases 1.0 and a pair of.0, the Central authorities allotted vital funds to Haryana, particularly for strong waste administration. As a lot as Rs.181.8 crore was put aside underneath SBM 1.0, and Rs.226.9 crore underneath SBM 2.0—funds meant to deal with points similar to legacy landfills, together with Bandhwari. Nonetheless, based on knowledge revealed in Parliament, not a single rupee was utilised by the Haryana authorities between 2019 and 2021.
Leachate spewing into the forest
The highway to Mangar village as soon as served as a lifeline, linking the group to the skin world, with indicators pointing to Bani, the sacred forest native residents have revered for generations. The plush Mangarbani within the Aravalli is residence to 30 distinctive tree species and is a crucial refuge for wildlife. In 2017, the Wildlife Institute of India declared this space ecologically delicate, underscoring its significance in preserving the area’s biodiversity. However at the moment, the sacred land is underneath siege.
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“We had a 22-foot-wide highway connecting our village to the Gurugram-Faridabad freeway. Now, it’s buried underneath mountains of rubbish,” Joginder mentioned. He pointed to the place the highway as soon as lay—now consumed by the landfill’s unrelenting unfold over the previous two years.
Alongside this path, a makeshift drain stretches for 500 metres, constructed with high-density polyethylene (HDPE) liner to divert leachate away from the forest. However Joginder calls it futile. “Each time it rains, the drain overflows, and all of the contaminated water spills into the jungle,” he defined.
The outdated highway that related the Mangar village to the Gurugram-Faridabad freeway.
| Picture Credit score:
Shubhangi Derhgawen
As we ventured deeper into the landfill, Joginder revealed the reality: the drain is a mere façade. A pipe funnels poisonous leachate straight into the forest, with no actual infrastructure to cease the air pollution. Pointing to a black pool of stagnant water, he described the injury. “This leachate has been seeping into the soil for years, poisoning every part it touches. Have a look at the timber, the soil: they’re useless,” he mentioned, as brown water poured from the pipe.
Loopholes in Jal Jeevan Mission
In a Could 15, 2024 report back to the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal (NGT), the Haryana Air pollution Management Board revealed alarming groundwater contamination across the Bandhwari landfill, far exceeding security limits. The monsoon threatens to worsen this with extra leachate run-off. Simply two months earlier, Gurugram Municipal Commissioner Narhari Singh Banger had claimed that groundwater close to Bandhwari was freed from carcinogens and heavy metals, with the Municipal Company of Gurugram (MCG) declaring it “protected” regardless of issues. In the meantime, villagers in Mangar, reliant on a government-installed water pipeline since 2021, stay afraid of contamination as a result of landfill’s proximity. In 2022, the Central authorities proudly touted the success of the Jal Jeevan Mission in Haryana, declaring 100 per cent water connectivity in all rural households.
Highlights
- In September 2022, the NGT slapped a Rs.100 crore advantageous on the Haryana authorities for failing to handle legacy waste on the Bandhwari landfill.
- In a Could 15, 2024 report back to the NGT, the Haryana Air pollution Management Board revealed alarming groundwater contamination across the Bandhwari landfill.
- The Haryana authorities has set December 31, 2024, because the deadline to clear the location, however it’s turning out to be one other in a collection of unfulfilled guarantees.
Twenty-four-year-old Namit, who lives close to the sacred Bani, voiced his rising fear: “The nearer you get to the Bani, the more serious the stench and water high quality. For the previous 12 months, our water has had a faint rotten odor. The bore properly is 200 metres deep, however everybody close to the Bani faces the identical drawback. We are able to’t afford an RO [reverse osmosis] system, so now we have no selection.”
Raj, a 45-year-old farmer from Bandhwari, echoed these frustrations. “Even with an RO, it didn’t final greater than six months. When it broke down, the corporate blamed the water high quality and refused to repair it. We are able to’t afford one other system, so we’re pressured to dwell with it.”
Make-shift drain accumulating leachate in a Excessive Density Polyethylene (HDPE) liner.
| Picture Credit score:
Shubhangi Derhgawen
In Bandhwari and Mangar, most households now buy 20 litre water cans, costing Rs.2,000-3,000 a month, simply to drink clear water. The federal government’s promise of protected faucet water rings hole for villagers who can’t afford RO methods and are left to fend for themselves. Whereas the mission could boast about entry, the truth of water high quality stays ignored.
No segregation of waste
Since 2010, the Bandhwari landfill has turn out to be an unchecked dumping floor, receiving over 1,600 tonnes of waste each day from Gurugram and Faridabad. Solely a fraction of that is processed, the bulk left to rot. This failure will be traced to a 2017 settlement with Eco Inexperienced Recycling Pvt. Ltd, tasked with managing waste from assortment to processing and even constructing a waste-to-energy plant. Eco Inexperienced failed miserably: segregation dropped, assortment slowed, and demanding waste amenities have been by no means constructed. The consequence: Over 85 per cent of waste from Gurugram and Faridabad stays unsegregated, with mountains of combined trash filling up the landfill. Regardless of the MCG’s 16,000 tonne biomining capability, recent waste is dumped each day, because of weak segregation and dismal assortment charges. The MCG lastly cancelled Eco Inexperienced’s contract in June 2024 after residents of the realm repeatedly complained in regards to the firm’s failures, however the injury was already achieved, and the landfill stays an emblem of failed governance and damaged guarantees.
In a September 2024 NGT order, it was revealed that 85 per cent of Gurugram’s and 80 per cent of Faridabad’s waste stays unsegregated. Combined waste continues to flood the landfill, overwhelming its capability.
Torn between livelihood and well being
The MCG acquired a no objection certificates to arrange a legacy landfill web site in the course of the forest on the situation that each the civic physique and Eco Inexperienced deposit Rs.2 crore mixed as environmental compensation with the wildlife division. They have been additionally tasked with guaranteeing that the waste processing plant didn’t hurt the close by Aravalli forest. Regardless of these agreements, the Aravalli habitat has suffered intensive injury.
On the premise of the polluter pays precept, the NGT Act of 2010 grants the tribunal the ability to penalise environmental offenders. In September 2022, the NGT slapped a Rs.100 crore advantageous on the Haryana authorities for failing to handle legacy waste on the Bandhwari landfill. The advantageous to be collected was meant for use for environmental restoration. In February 2023, the NGT once more voiced its frustration over the State’s lack of actual progress regardless of these penalties.
Leachate from the Bandhwari landfill going straight into the Aravalli West Thorn Scrub Forest.
| Picture Credit score:
Shubhangi Derhgawen
In accordance with Satish Sinha, affiliate director at Toxics Hyperlink, an NGO concerned in environmental analysis and advocacy, whereas penalties and compensation are essential to making sure accountability, there may be restricted transparency in how the fines are utilised. “It’s an unproductive course of,” he mentioned. “When a advantageous is levied on a authorities division, the cash usually shifts from one division to a different [MCG pays the fine from its budget but borrows funds from another state department for its operations, creating an endless cycle], however not often leads to corrective motion.” Sinha additionally emphasised that the people straight answerable for the injury are seldom held accountable or penalised for his or her selections, which undermines the general influence of such fines.
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The environmental influence evaluation (EIA) report submitted by the MCG in 2018 for the proposed strong waste processing unit at Bandhwari exposes crucial shortcomings. A public listening to, necessary for partaking native stakeholders, was performed with out adequately informing the villagers. Regardless of the MCG’s assurances that leachate therapy could be prioritised, no plan was finalised till December 2023, the final time any official notification got here relating to the leachate plan. How can a venture depend on an EIA performed by the very occasion implementing it? The EIA report notes all these issues however asserts that the residents’ issues have been adequately addressed.
Whereas the State grapples with mounting environmental fines, the native residents are those who bear the actual value. Joginder was a college bus driver who misplaced his job in the course of the 2020 lockdown and began working on the Bandhwari landfill. It was one of many few employment choices left. “Every single day, I’m petrified of respiration this poisonous air and consuming our contaminated water,” he mentioned. Well being issues in his village have snowballed. “Our healthcare prices have tripled. Each physician go to units us again by Rs.1,000, and my household goes at the least twice a month.”
His eyes scan the horizon, ready for an official—anybody—to return and tackle the chaos, to offer some solutions: “When will this landfill, this mountain of neglect, lastly be cleared?”
Deepanshu Mohan is Professor of Economics and Dean, O.P. Jindal International College (JGU), Sonipat, Haryana. He’s Director of JGU’s Centre for New Economics Research (CNES), a Visiting Professor on the London College of Economics, and a Visiting Fellow on the School of Asian and Center Japanese Research, College of Oxford.
Shubhangi Derhgawen is a contract journalist and a researcher with the Visible Storyboards staff of the CNES.
This area report was produced in collaboration with the Visible Storyboards initiative of the CNES.
