Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari questions shifting deadlines to clean Dadumajra dump: ‘most unfortunate’

The Congress leader pointed out that the Chandigarh Administration and the Municipal Corporation had assured the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that the site would be cleared by December 25, 2024. This commitment was made in the Administrator’s Advisory Committee meeting in August 2024, he added.

However, Tewari said, when the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs visited Chandigarh, the Municipal Corporation said the dump, including both legacy and concurrent waste, would be cleared by June 2025. He said in its latest response in Parliament, the government said it has extended the deadline to July 31, 2025, with a caveat that it is subject to weather conditions. “It is most unfortunate that timelines are arbitrarily shifted every couple of weeks,” Tewari said.

In its reply, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs stated that under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, Rs 28.50 crore had been approved as Central assistance for the remediation of the legacy waste dumpsite in Chandigarh. However, no separate allocation of funds had been made specifically for the Dadumajra dump, as funds for such projects are released under the mission’s Solid Waste Management (SWM) component.

The ministry informed Parliament that two of the three legacy waste dumps at Dadumajra had already been cleared. Bio-remediation of the third dump, which contained approximately 2.40 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of waste as of January 2025, had now begun. The government reiterated that the entire dump site would be cleared by July 31, 2025, subject to weather conditions.

While hearing a PIL on the Dadumajra dump last month, the Punjab and Haryana High Court orally warned Chandigarh authorities that if they don’t clear the Dadumajra garbage dump by May this year, contempt proceedings would be initiated against them.

Addressing concerns about waste management, the ministry said sanitation is a state subject under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, making it the responsibility of the state and urban local bodies (ULBs) to plan, design, execute, and operate sanitation projects. It added that the central government provides policy directions, financial assistance, and technical support to states and ULBs.

To prevent the recurrence of such garbage dumps, the government said it had issued various advisories and guidelines on solid waste management, landfill reclamation, and disposal of legacy waste. It also provided model procurement documents to states to help expedite the bidding process for waste management projects.