E-Paper
Legacy waste at Chandigarh’s Dadumajra landfill will be cleared by December-end, says Centre
The information was shared by the Union ministry of environment, forest, and climate change in reply to a question by Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari
The work of bioremediation of entire legacy waste, which is dumped at the Dadumajra landfill, is scheduled for completion by December this year. The information was shared by the Union ministry of environment, forest, and climate change in a reply to a question by Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari.
The response came in the ongoing Parliament session on Monday after Tewari sought details about the “garbage mountains” in Chandigarh.
The MP sought answers to whether the central government is aware that a mega garbage dump is located in Dadumajra, causing severe air and water pollution in multiple sectors of the city and around 22 villages adjoining the dump.
He had also questioned whether the Chandigarh administration or municipal corporation (MC) has given an undertaking to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to clear the entire garbage dump by the last week of December, and the details thereof, if so. Tewari also asked whether the government is aware that no substantial steps have been undertaken to wholly or substantially fulfil the work in support of the undertaking given to NGT. He further sought details of the steps proposed by the government to address the issue.
In response to the questions, the ministry said, “The Chandigarh MC had said the first garbage mountain of five lakh metric ton (MT) of legacy waste has already been bioremediated from the garbage dump site between the years 2019 and 2022. The work was executed by Chandigarh Smart City Ltd (CSCL).”
“As per the MC, the work for bioremediation of 13.3 lakh cubic metres is scheduled for completion by December 2024. The civic body has also informed that a large number of machines, along with transportation machinery, have been deployed for bioremediation of the remaining waste by July 2025,” the ministry added.
Teeming trash troubles
Due to inadequate waste processing facilities, the waste management journey of Chandigarh has been chequered, resulting in two legacy waste mountains of 5 lakh MT and 8 lakh MT at the Dadumajra landfill during the past decades. The entire 5 lakh MT waste, dumped before 2005, was processed and cleared by December 2022.
Meanwhile, bioremediation of the second mountain of 8 lakh MT is presently being done by MC under the Swachh Bharat Mission-2. As per the corporation, out of the 8 lakh MT waste, 7.8 lakh MT has already been processed till date.
Meanwhile, a third mountain, holding a massive 1.25 lakh MT of waste, has emerged at the landfill as a result of unabated dumping of unsegregated and unprocessed daily waste.
MC commissioner Amit Kumar said, “From the total legacy waste, we are just left with about 20,000 MT. We aim to complete its bioremediation in the next 15 days as the private firm which was allotted the task to be completed in 43 months, has already enjoyed multiple deadlines. Also, additional temporary dump of 1.25 lakh MT will be bioremediated and we aim to clear all the waste from Dadumajra by July 2025.”
