Giving a fresh deadline, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday has asked the municipal corporation (MC) to clear garbage lying at the Dadumajra dumping site and at various locations across the city by September end.
The division bench of acting chief justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and justice Rohit Kapoor told the MC to provide a timeline for the proposed Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) waste processing plant.
The MC’s counsel submitted that substantial garbage had been cleared from the site, trees had been planted and the corporation proposed to cover around 33% of the 45-acre landfill area with plantation. The work on the proposed IOCL plant was progressing, while other plants were operational.
The petitioner-in-person advocate Amit Sharma acknowledged the improvement at Dadumajra, stating that the quantity of garbage had reduced and trees had indeed been planted. He also pointed out that garbage was still being dumped at various locations across Chandigarh and that photographs of such instances had already been shared with the concerned authorities. Further, site has also not been completely cleared of the garbage.
He also stated that there are reports of proposed IOCL plant facing questions regarding its viability. Detailed order of proceedings is awaited.
{{/usCountry}}He also stated that there are reports of proposed IOCL plant facing questions regarding its viability. Detailed order of proceedings is awaited.
{{/usCountry}}The first mountain, comprising 5 lakh MT (metric tonne), was fully cleared by December 2022. The second mountain, of 8 lakh MT, was originally slated for clearance by July 2023. The deadline was extended five times—from December 2023, March 2024, June 2024, October 2024, and then to December 2024. The target was finally achieved in February 2025. While the second mountain was being remediated, a third heap of 2.4 lakh MT emerged due to continuous dumping of unsegregated and unprocessed daily waste. Its deadline was July 2025, then September 2025, and later November 2025, but was finally achieved in April-May this year.
The ₹33 crore legacy mining project was launched in December 2019 by the then UT administrator VP Singh Badnore and completed in 2022. In the second phase ₹68 crore project launched under the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 was to target the remaining 7.5 lakh MT legacy waste dumped at the Dadumajra site after 2005. The MC spent another ₹12 crore for the third mountain, which came up while the legacy waste was being processed