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Amritsar MC dumping one-third of daily garbage at landfills
The admission came in the corporation’s reply affidavit filed before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on September 3 in response to a petition by BJP leader and former IAS officer Jagmohan Singh Raju
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The Amritsar Municipal Corporation is struggling to get its waste act together.
Despite claiming to have overhauled the city’s waste-management system, the civic body is still dumping 220-260 metric tonnes (MT) of fresh waste every day at landfills — nearly a third of the 680-720 MT generated and collected daily.
The admission came in the corporation’s reply affidavit filed before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on September 3 in response to a petition by BJP leader and former IAS officer Jagmohan Singh Raju.
The MC rejected allegations of “wilful negligence”, systemic failure and administrative apathy, while asserting that it is taking several measures to strengthen waste collection, transportation, processing and disposal.
As submitted in the affidavit, out of the total fresh waste collected every day in Amritsar, around 220 MT dry waste is being channelled and 240 MT wet waste is being processed, while the remaining 220-260 MT continues to be dumped without processing.
The corporation added that it was working to address the shortfall through larger processing infrastructure, including a 450-MT per day (MTPD) material recovery facility, a 300-MTPD bio-CNG plant and a 750-MTPD integrated waste-sorting facility.
The affidavit also acknowledged a disruption in waste management last year. Operations in 18 wards were hampered between September 6 and October 6, 2025, after Amritsar MSW Ltd abandoned its operations. During this period, the MC said it had to manage waste with its limited resources.
MC cites clean-up efforts
The corporation subsequently divided the city into two territories and awarded public-private partnership (PPP) contracts to 3R Management Ltd, in consortium with Suntan Life. The two contracts, covering 41 and 44 wards, have a combined project cost of around ₹98 crore.
On legacy waste, the MC reported substantial progress at the Bhagtanwala dumping site. Bio-remediation began there on October 2, 2025, and 7,99,838 MT of legacy waste had been bio-remediated by July 6, 2026, according to the affidavit.
The civic body has also stepped up enforcement against littering and open garbage burning, reporting 2,298 challans against defaulters, including four for open burning of waste. It has also pointed to door-to-door collection across residential, commercial and institutional areas, and dedicated sanitation teams around the Golden Temple, Galiara and adjoining walled-city corridors as evidence of operational improvements.
The Amritsar MC is also facing NGT scrutiny in a separate matter concerning the Chabhal Road dumping site. In an affidavit filed on August 27, the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) flagged the presence of around 1.5 lakh MT of uncleared legacy waste spread across 11 acres and the absence of functional machinery for its bio-remediation, besides inadequate arrangements for drainage and leachate treatment.
The PPCB also pointed to repeated regulatory directions and financial penalties imposed on the MC since 2020, including an ₹8-crore environmental compensation, and sought proceedings against the civic body under Section 15 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
