The Human Cost of Urban Aesthetics Exemplified by the Wastelands of Delhi NCR

These stories reveal the state’s choices to regulate waste management in ways that sustain social inequalities.

An image of the Bandhwari landfill situated at the Gurugram-Faridabad Highway.

(Photo: Author)

(This field report has been produced in collaboration with Visual Storyboards initiative of Centre for New Economics Studies, OP Jindal Global University.)

On 2 October 2014, the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched with much fanfare, aiming to transform the country into a "Clean India" by 2019. While the campaign initially promised a revolutionary approach to waste management, ten years later, the state of Delhi NCR exposes the deep contradictions of urban development, ie, the city thrives while its waste is systematically pushed to its peripheries, where it wreaks havoc on marginalised communities.  

The stories of landfills like Bhalswa, Ghazipur, and Bandhwari reveal the state’s deliberate choices to regulate waste management in ways that sustain social inequalities and deepen marginalisation.

These landfills, far from the city’s polished landscapes, reflect how the state actively produces and sustains informal spaces of neglect, where law and regulation are absent, leaving vulnerable communities to grapple with toxic environments. 

Joginder, a supervisor at the Bandhwari Landfill and a resident of Mangar village.

(Photo: Author)

The Bandhwari landfill, situated along the Gurugram-Faridabad highway, is emblematic of this broader governance failure. Intended to hold only processed waste, Bandhwari has instead turned into a colossal dump of unsegregated trash.  

Joginder, a resident of nearby Mangar village and a supervisor at the landfill points to the growing environmental disaster unfolding just 35 kilometres from Delhi. “Yes, this landfill helps us earn, but should that be put above our health,” he asks.

The Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 (SBM-U), launched in 2021 with the ambitious promise to make India’s cities garbage-free, is yet another example of the gap between political rhetoric and ground realities. The mission aimed to process legacy waste and eradicate the "mountains of garbage" that blight cities like Delhi. The government even promised a dashboard to track progress across 2,200 landfill sites.

Yet, two years after the plan was announced, no such dashboard exists, and landfills like Bandhwari remain mired in inefficiency and neglect. 

Processing of collecting leachate at the bottom of the Bandhwari landfill through cranes.

(Photo: Author)

At the heart of the Bandhwari crisis is the failure to implement waste segregation at the source. Since 2010, Bandhwari has received over 1,600 tonnes of mixed waste daily, but only a small portion is processed.  

A 2017 tripartite agreement between the Haryana government, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), and Eco Green Recycling Pvt Ltd was meant to improve waste management, but the company’s failure to fulfil its obligations has led to continued dumping of unprocessed waste.

By September 2024, the MCG revealed to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that 85 percent of Gurugram’s and 80 percent of Faridabad’s waste remains unsegregated, overwhelming the landfill’s capacity.

This state of neglect mirrors what is happening in Bhalswa, where the informal labour of waste-pickers keeps the city’s waste problem at bay, but at a tremendous human cost. Migrants from rural West Bengal, the waste-pickers live in makeshift homes made from scrap materials, and their children are often forced to work alongside them due to a lack of alternatives.

These workers are invisible to the state, despite the essential role they play in managing the city’s waste. There are no formal contracts, no rights, no protections, and no fixed incomes. As scholar Barbara Harris-White aptly describes, such informal spaces are “persistently embedded in social institutions such as caste, ethnicity, religion, space, and locality.”

In Bhalswa, this informality is not a natural consequence, but a deliberate choice by the state to keep these workers on the margins. 

The state’s selective application of regulation is most evident in its handling of Eco Green, the company responsible for waste management and segregation at Bandhwari. Despite Eco Green’s repeated failures, it continued to operate for years without accountability, leading to an environmental and public health disaster.  

The MCG finally terminated Eco Green’s contract in June 2024, but the damage had already been done. The unchecked dumping of unsegregated waste has contaminated the soil and water, with toxic leachate seeping into the Aravalli hills. This pollution, which has been occurring for years, is poisoning the land and water that local communities depend on for survival. 

Leachate from the Bandhwari landfill going directly into the Aravalli jungle.

(Photo: Author)

In Bandhwari, villagers like Joginder are technically part of the formal waste management network, but their position is equally precarious. Their proximity to government officials and promises of interventions, such as RO systems to mitigate groundwater contamination, offer a veneer of state involvement. However, these solutions only increase the financial burden on the workers.  

The Haryana State Pollution Control Board revealed in May 2024 to the NGT that nearly all locations around Bandhwari showed groundwater contamination levels exceeding safety parameters. Yet, just two months prior, the MCG declared the water “safe” for consumption, dismissing the concerns of villagers, who reported a “faint rotten smell” in the water near the sacred Bani forest.

The Jal Jeevan Mission, which declared 100 percent water connectivity in rural Haryana, has failed to address the actual quality of water in these areas. Villagers are forced to rely on RO systems, which frequently break down, or purchase 20-litre water cans, adding to their mounting expenses. 

The Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) meant to assess such impacts have proven to be little more than bureaucratic formalities. The EIA filed by the MCG for Bandhwari’s proposed solid waste processing unit in 2018 failed to adequately inform the villagers during the public hearing, a crucial part of the process.

Despite the MCG's assurances during the hearing that leachate treatment would be prioritised, the plan remained unfinalised as of December 2023. Additionally, the air pollution control devices promised by the MCG were never implemented.  

Waste pickers are marginalised by a system that refuses to formalise their labour. They are denied the protections and rights that would come with a formal recognition of their work, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by private contractors and intermediaries.

In both Bhalswa and Bandhwari, we see how the state creates informal spaces, enabling certain actors—such as Eco Green in Bandhwari—to operate with impunity, while leaving vulnerable communities to fend for themselves, even as they play a critical role in managing the city's waste in places like Bhalswa.

The state's fixation on controlling certain sectors while allowing others to remain informal reveals a broader political choice—one that prioritises urban aesthetics and the interests of the powerful over human lives and environmental sustainability. 

For communities living near landfills, the consequences of this neglect are devastating. In Bandhwari, residents report a sharp rise in illnesses, with healthcare costs tripling in recent years. Every visit to the doctor costs Rs 1,000, a significant burden for families already struggling to make ends meet.

The toxic environment created by the landfill has turned their homes into hazardous spaces, where the air they breathe and the water they drink pose constant threats to their health.

Shredded waste dumped at different sites of Dhauj village.

(Photo: Author)

The NGT levied a Rs 100 crore fine on the Haryana government in 2023 for its failure to address legacy waste at Bandhwari, but little progress has been made since. The landfill stands as a stark reminder of the widening gap between government promises and ground realities.

The deadline to clear the site has been set for December 2024, but for the residents of Mangar and Dhauj, who have witnessed decades of broken promises, such deadlines carry little weight.

In recent months, villagers have reported that shredded waste from the landfill is being quietly diverted and illegally dumped on the outskirts of their villages, worsening their living conditions. 

Until the state recognises the humanity of those living on the margins—those who bear the brunt of urban neglect—the mountains of garbage that define our cities will continue to grow, both in physical and metaphorical terms. 

(Shubhangi Derhgawen is a Freelance Journalist and a Researcher with the Visual Storyboard Team of Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), O.P. Jindal Global University. Deepanshu Mohan is a Professor of Economics, Dean, IDEAS, Office of Inter-Disciplinary Studies, and Director of Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), OP Jindal Global University. He is a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and a 2024 Fall Academic Visitor to the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.)