Gurugram claims fewer garbage hotspots, residents say dumps remain

MCG said two agencies began clearing the remaining sites in August, while residents in Sectors 21, 23A and 31 reported overflowing garbage.

Despite the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) claiming that the number of garbage vulnerable points (GVPs) in the city has fallen from 242 to 145 in a year, residents said major garbage dumps continue to persist across sectors and key arterial roads, posing hygiene and health concerns.

Residents flagged overflowing waste in Sectors 21, 23A and 31 as the sanitation workers’ strike entered its 28th day. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

MCG officials told HT that the corporation identified 242 GVPs in 2025, which were reduced to 182 by the end of the year and currently stand at 145. Two agencies were awarded tenders in the beginning of August to eliminate the remaining GVPs and have started work, officials said.

Dr Preetpal Singh, joint commissioner (Swacch Bharat Mission), MCG, told HT that the agencies have begun clearing the remaining GVPs. “The issue of GVPs is also because of the stop-gap door-to-door garbage collection which was in place. However, with a proper and permanent mechanism for door-to-door garbage collection now in the city, we are confident that the situation will improve further,” he said.

Residents, however, alleged that garbage at several points was barely being lifted and that major GVPs remained intact. In Sector 23A, residents said five major GVPs had grown significantly in recent months, including three near residential areas.

Waste strewn along Bhuteshwar Temple -Sohna Chowk Road as seen on Wednesday. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

Bhawani Shankar Tripathi, a resident of Sector 23A, told HT, “When you step out of your house, the first thing you see is a heap of garbage. No one wants to live with that. The civic agency has made no visible effort to clear the GVPs in our sector. Officials had assured residents that these points would be cleared by the end of September, but we are already into the month and there has been no progress.”

Residents identified an 18-metre stretch near Janamdiwas Park, a stretch near the cremation ground and a stretch near Carterpuri as vulnerable to garbage accumulation.

Kundan Lal Sharma, general secretary of the Sector 21 residents’ welfare association (RWA), said three major GVPs in the sector required urgent attention. “Our sector market is a GVP in itself. It is filled with filth and garbage, which is hardly cleared up. There are tractor trollies kept at some garbage-vulnerable areas; however, the garbage is spilling from those trollies onto the roads. There is no regular system in place,” he said.

Residents sought a public list of GVPs. BS Yadav, president of the Sector 31 RWA, said the garbage dump near the sector market was overflowing onto adjoining roads.

Waste littered in Sadar Bazar on Wednesday. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

Meanwhile, the sanitation workers’ strike continued for the 28th day. Basant Kumar, president of Haryana Sarv Karamchari Sangh, Gurugram, said, “The strike will continue across Haryana until the government issues formal orders to regularise the 1,175 firemen and 13,000 contractual municipal employees, abolish the contract labour system and implement the demands agreed upon on May 13 this year.”