The newly elected local government of New Delhi has pledged to clear the towering Bhalswa Garbage Mountain by March 2026, fulfilling a key election promise to tackle the city’s mounting waste crisis. The city’s new Environment Minister, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, announced the announcement at a public event where officials planted bamboo saplings on a reclaimed landfill section.
The infamous 70-acre Bhalswa dump, located on Delhi’s northern outskirts, has long served as a metaphor for the city’s shortcomings in trash management. According to official estimates, the facility is currently occupied by almost 4 million tonnes of waste. The landfill’s height has increased to 60 meters (about 200 feet) in certain places, overshadowing neighbouring residential areas and causing serious health and environmental hazards.
Bhalswa Garbage Mountain: A challenge
Efforts to reduce the size of the landfill began in 2019, and according to local reports, the height of the waste mound was reduced by 11 to 12 meters within the first year. Despite these efforts, the challenge remains substantial. Delhi generates over 11,000 tons of solid waste daily, much of which continues to be directed to existing landfills, including Bhalswa.
Minister Sirsa revealed that approximately 25 acres of the site have already been reclaimed. The government’s plan aims to make the landfill invisible from a distance by the end of 2025. Following the cleanup of Bhalswa, the government intends to address two other significant landfills at Okhla and Ghazipur, both of which present similar environmental hazards.
Communities in Crisis
The areas around Bhalswa are inhabited by thousands of Delhi’s most impoverished citizens, some of whom have moved from rural villages seeking employment. These people, depending frequently on salvaging recyclables from the dump, live in extreme conditions with the added burden of poisonous fumes, contaminated groundwater, and regular fires on the dump site.
The cleanup effort is regarded as a vital move towards resolving the environmental and social crises that hit these communities. Experts, however, warn that without an overall waste management plan, such as enhanced recycling and source segregation of waste, the city might not be able to maintain such efforts.
A Political Mandate for Change
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which secured a decisive victory in Delhi’s recent local elections, had made waste management and pollution control central themes of its campaign. In addition to the landfill crisis, the party promised to combat the city’s toxic air and clean up the heavily polluted Yamuna River.
Environmentalists and policy experts have endorsed the government’s determination but stressed that transparency and continued finance are required to reach these ambitious goals. “This is a step in the right direction, but we need to see concrete action and consistent progress reports,” stated a representative of a local environmental NGO.
As Delhi embarks on what officials describe as a monumental cleanup effort, the eyes of the nation will be on the capital to see if it can transform its towering trash into a symbol of environmental recovery.
Also Read: Mahakumbh 2025: 15,000 Workers Set Guinness Cleaning Record
