A year on, lush bamboo plantation at Bhalswa buried under mounds of trash

A municipal official said that six thousand bamboo saplings were planted but the project was abandoned and the site was instead used for dumping garbage.

The plan was to set up a lush bamboo grove at the Bhalswa landfill, Delhi’s infamous garbage mountain, marking its transformation into a “green zone”. A five-acre reclaimed site was selected and thousands of bamboo saplings were planted on March 4, 2025, in a drive led by the former lieutenant governor and Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. More than a year on, however, the site has a 30-feet high garbage mound and, everyday, municipal vehicles can be seen adding truckloads of garbage to it.

The current state of the landfill, as seen on Wednesday, where all bamboo saplings (below) planted last March died out, ending the plan to create a green zone at the landfill. (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO)

A municipal official said that six thousand bamboo saplings were planted but the project was abandoned and the site was instead used for dumping garbage. “The biomining project is being carried out on the old legacy waste so we needed space for dumping fresh waste coming from North Delhi areas,” the official explained in response to HT’s queries.

“The plantation was anyway not successful,” the official added. In April last year, HT had reported that the majority of saplings had started drying up even as the horticulture department workers attempted to keep the remaining plants alive.

On Wednesday, during the spot check, HT found that the periphery of the erstwhile Bamboo garden had been converted into a ramp for trucks, while the central area had a nearly two-storey high garbage stack. A few isolated dried up stalks of bamboo can be seen in the corners of the landfill area.

“After plantation, extensive care and maintenance were provided continuously for approximately more than one year, including regular watering, monitoring and other necessary measures. However, despite these efforts, a considerable number of bamboo plants could not survive,” the official quoted above added.

Efforts were also made to revive the plantation.

“At the locations where the bamboo plants had died, replantation was carried out repeatedly in an effort to maintain the plantation. The newly planted bamboo plants were also provided adequate care and protection. However, despite taking extensive precautions and providing sustained care, the number of bamboo plants could not survive and a substantial number of plants again failed to survive,” the MCD spokesperson told HT.

After a considerable period of making efforts to revive and maintain the plantation, it was ultimately decided, in view of the site requirements and operational necessity, to utilize the said area for fresh waste processing and its dumping, the spokesperson said.

The area was subsequently utilized for the aforesaid waste- management activities after it became evident that the bamboo plantation was not surviving, the civic body said.

Bhalswa landfill area is spread over 70 acres and it has been active since 1994. Biomining on the site was started in 2019 and so far 45 acres of Bhalswa landfill area has been reclaimed and the use for this land is yet to be decided by authorities.