Delhi govt’s 12-month timeline to flatten Bhalswa landfill faces obstacles

Environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa’s 12-month timeline for flattening the Bhalswa landfill faces multiple challenges, as the project started five years ago has encountered multiple deadline revisions and delays.

Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials overseeing the project said that three landfill sites—Okhla, Bhalswa and Ghazipur—cumulatively held 24 million tonnes of legacy waste in 2019 and that progress of biomining the waste has been slow.

According to the MCD status report, as of December 2024, 14.8 million tonnes of legacy waste was cleared through biomining but continued fresh waste dumping kept the total waste at 16.15 million tonnes of garbage.

The biomining of three dump sites was started in 2019 based on a National Green Tribunal order but there have been multiple revisions and extensions of these deadlines. According to the latest deadlines submitted to authorities, MCD plans to clear the Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla landfill sites by December 2028.

There is currently around 5 million tonnes of waste at Bhalswa, according to estimates.

Trommeling and biomining of mixed legacy waste lead to the separation of various components like inert materials and construction waste-boulders, fractions of soil, organic matter, and combustibles, such as plastic, clothes, etc. The mixed legacy waste is passed through trommel machines which act as cylindrical rotating sieves.

A senior MCD official said trommeling leads to the separation of 60-70% of inert material and 10-15% of RDF combustibles, while the rest is considered construction and demolition waste. MCD has 58 trommels at the three sites.

A senior MCD official said that continued dumping of fresh waste and non-formation of the standing committee are the key hurdles faced by the biomining project and during the initial phase, space shortages, funding and initial hurdles in disposal of materials produced by biomining led to delays in the project.

“Fresh garbage dumping has been stopped at Okhla but the other two sites continue to witness fresh waste dumping due to no other space earmarked for waste disposal. Since 2022, tenders for the biomining saw no progress due to non formation of standing committee. Finally, in October 2024, commissioner was granted financial powers for these projects, which are now expected to gather steam,” the official said.