Rs 100-cr ‘quick fix’ fails to give Gurugram clean look
While the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram spent over Rs 100 crore to ‘quick fix’ city’s sanitation crises it has failed to do much. The much pompous promise of getting rid of Bandhwari landfill mountain by December 2024 has fallen flat as this deadline has now been shifted to June 2025.
Will resume waste treatment
We will soon be issuing tenders and resume the waste treatment. The crises do exist and we have initiated a new sanitation model on basis of community development which is showing results
Ashok Garg, Gurugram MC Commissioner
The contract of agency working on treatment of legacy waste expired recently and new tenders are yet to be issued. According to officials, the Bandhwari landfill site had around 40 lakh metric tonnes of waste, of which 32 lakh metric tonnes were processed. The remaining 8 lakh metric tonnes is currently being processed. MCG, which had initially set a deadline of March 2023 for clearing the waste, and then extended it to December 2024, which it will miss again. Gurugram MP and Union Minister of State Rao Inderjit Singh promised to stage a dharna along with villagers if the landfill was not cleared by December this year. The local villagers are yet to decide on the way forward.
On average, around 2,300 tonnes of garbage is being transported to the Bandhwari landfill site daily. Of this, nearly 1,300 tonnes comes from Gurugram whereas Faridabad transports around 1,000 tonnes of waste to the landfill site every day.
Even in the city, despite purchase of swanky equipment, employment of multiple contractors over 100 illegal waste dump yards continue to exist and internal survey of the authority in October revealed that over 40 per cent of city’s roads, round abouts were still struggling with piled up garbage.
Speaking to the Tribune, MCG Commissioner Ashok Garg said the treatment of legacy waste at Bandhwari was being done continuously, but the deadline for its complete removal had to be shifted.
“We will soon be issuing tenders and resume the waste treatment. The crises do exist and we have initiated a new sanitation model on basis of community development which is showing results. We have got the equipment like Jatayu machines, which had been lying idle for months now up and working. We are in the process of decentralisation of waste management and hope to resolve the crises soon,” said Garg.
Meanwhile, the Haryana Human Rights Commission (HHRC) has taken a stern stance on MCG’s constant failure to get rid of Bandhwari landfill and directed it to submit a status report explaining the reason for delay in disposal of legacy waste. The commission visited the landfill site in 2023 after a complaint about the dumping ground polluting the groundwater in nearby villages.
The commission directed the MCG to construct drainage to stop the seepage of leachate into groundwater and nearby water bodies and directed that garbage mounds be cleared from the site. MCG had assured the panel that the site will be cleared by Nov 30, 2024. A hearing in this matter was held on Monday. The HHRC observed that there was no significant change at Bandhwari till now.
