Mountains of Menace: Why India’s Landfills Must Be Audited—Now
Okhla area in Delhi Image credit The Raisina Hills
Ghazipur was declared “full” in 2002 but still receives 2,500 tonnes of waste daily—over 65 metres tall, and visible from an aircraft.
By P. SESH KUMAR
NEW DELHI, July 13, 2025—India is sitting atop a ticking time bomb—one not of warheads or financial scams, but of garbage. Its landfills, towering like grotesque monuments to urban neglect, are ecological, health, and civic disasters that continue to grow in size and threat. And yet, they remain largely unaccounted for, unregulated, and astonishingly invisible in national audits.
It is time for the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India to undertake a nationwide performance audit of landfills—open, closed, and forgotten—before these dumps drag us further into environmental and public health catastrophe.
Legacy Dumps, Living Nightmares
India generates over 1.5 lakh tonnes of municipal solid waste every day, but only a fraction is treated scientifically. The rest ends up in massive, festering mounds such as Ghazipur in East Delhi or Bandhwari on the Gurugram-Faridabad stretch. These are not merely local nuisances—they are national tragedies in slow motion. Ghazipur was declared “full” in 2002 but still receives 2,500 tonnes of waste daily. It is now over 65 metres tall, visible from aircraft, and as emblematic of dysfunction as it is of denial.
Another glaring example is the GT Karnal Road dump—a phantom landfill, never formally notified, yet fully alive and dangerously toxic. With no engineering, no monitoring, and no accountability, such dumps proliferate with impunity across Indian cities.
Engineering Myths, Ecological Realities
Landfills are methane factories. In oxygen-deprived conditions, organic waste ferments into methane—a highly explosive gas. Without gas capture systems, the buildup leads to underground fires. Ghazipur has caught fire multiple times; Bandhwari witnessed over 70 fires in just four months of 2024.
Beneath the surface, leachate—a toxic chemical cocktail—seeps into groundwater. With most landfills lacking proper liners or treatment facilities, this slow poisoning extends to aquifers and rivers. In Bandhwari, authorities even sprayed leachate on roads to suppress dust—a bizarre, dangerous act symptomatic of systemic failure.
Even “closed” landfills don’t die. They continue to emit gas, catch fire, and receive waste—often under the pretext of “inert material.” Closure, in Indian landfill parlance, is a fiction.
The Human Toll: Invisible and Incurable
The true cost of landfill neglect is human. Residents near landfills suffer from chronic respiratory diseases, eye infections, and skin disorders. During a 2022 fire in Ghazipur, PM2.5 levels crossed 500—hazardous by every standard.
One elderly woman, now living in the US, recalled how her daily rides past Ghazipur to visit her eye doctor in 2017 were suffocating—not just physically, but emotionally. “It is not just garbage. It is grief solidified,” she said. Such stories, repeated across the country, speak volumes about how our waste crisis pushes people not just out of homes, but out of hope.
Institutional Collapse and Apathy
The decay runs deep. A 2020 CAG audit in Karnataka found that 32 of 35 urban local bodies had no designated sites for construction waste, no proper segregation, and massive staff shortages. State Pollution Control Boards and bodies like the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) have been reprimanded repeatedly by courts for inaction—yet landfills keep burning, oozing, and expanding.
Funds are routinely misallocated. Urban local bodies (ULBs) cry foul over inadequate budgets, but splurge on short-term contracts for waste transportation. Scientific closure plans gather dust, and projects like Bandhwari’s Waste-to-Energy plant are perennially delayed.
A Climate and Justice Emergency
Globally, methane is responsible for 20% of current warming and is 25 times more potent than CO₂. Yet, India’s climate inventories do not account for methane emissions from landfills—an astonishing omission for a country with over 3,100 active or legacy dump sites.
Even more ignored are the waste-pickers—the invisible backbone of urban sanitation. Working without gloves, boots, or medical care, they sift through toxic sludge daily, unrecognized, uninsured, and unrewarded. No audit, so far, has recorded their sacrifice.
CAG Must Step In—With Urgency
A nationwide performance audit by the CAG is essential. It must assess:
- Scientific Design & Safety: Are sites lined, capped, and vented? Are fires monitored and methane flared?
- Leachate Management: Are tanks in place? Is discharge monitored?
- Pollution & Health Surveillance: What is the air, water, and soil quality near dumps?
- Post-Closure Practices: Are “closed” landfills still active in disguise?
- Governance & Finance: How are SWM funds being used? Are tenders transparent? Are WTE plants viable and compliant?
Case Studies of Crisis
- Ghazipur, Delhi: 40 years of dumping, a towering threat, and no end in sight.
- GT Karnal Road, Delhi: An unofficial landfill that poisons without records.
- Bandhwari, Gurugram: Fire-prone, leachate-leaking, and dangerously close to the ecologically sensitive Aravallis.
- Karnataka ULBs: A microcosm of national failure—unprepared, understaffed, and underwhelming.
The Road Ahead: From Dump to Design
India must:
- Create a national landfill risk register.
- Enforce segregation at source with strict ULB accountability.
- Retrofit dumps with caps, liners, and gas capture systems.
- Launch public dashboards for real-time landfill data.
- Provide safety kits and health cards to waste-pickers.
- Fund SWM scientifically—with CAG oversight.
- Demand monthly landfill condition reports from ULBs.
Closing Dumpers, Opening Eyes
India’s waste crisis is not about garbage. It is about governance. Each untreated landfill is a scar—on our cities, our conscience, and our climate. The longer we delay, the higher the pile grows—and so does the danger.
The CAG, as the constitutional guardian of fiscal discipline and public interest, must act now. A national landfill audit will not just expose rot—it will compel reform. Before another Ghazipur collapses, before another fire chokes children, before another citizen leaves her home out of despair—audit the garbage, before the garbage audits us.
This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only.
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