Bandhwari Leachate Plant Still Awaiting Approval

GURUGRAM: More than a year after officials were directed to establish a permanent system for treating leachate at the Bandhwari landfill, the project has not started and tankers remain the site's main line of defence against contaminated liquid escaping into the surrounding landscape.

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram has prepared a proposal valued at about Rs 24 crore, but it has been awaiting Haryana government approval since last year. Officials estimate that Bandhwari currently generates roughly 200 to 220 kilolitres of leachate a day, with the monsoon adding rainwater to exposed waste and increasing the handling burden.

A liquid waste problem below the waste mountain

Leachate forms when water passes through mixed waste and picks up dissolved and suspended contaminants. At an old landfill, it can contain organic matter, salts, metals and other pollutants. If collection drains, storage pits or transport arrangements fail, the liquid can move into soil, surface channels or groundwater.

That risk is especially sensitive at Bandhwari because the landfill sits beside the Aravalli landscape on the Gurugram-Faridabad Road. The wildlife department wrote to the civic body last week, flagging the need for proper management. Its intervention adds environmental urgency but does not, by itself, establish that a particular groundwater source has been contaminated; such a conclusion requires sampling and laboratory evidence.

The proposed permanent system includes a boundary wall, concrete storage tanks, a garland drain around the waste area and a treatment unit using a process suited to concentrated landfill liquid. These components remain proposed. Until approval and construction, tankers carry collected leachate to the sewage-treatment facility at Behrampur.

Tanker transport can be a workable emergency measure only if every load is recorded. The city should publish daily generation, quantity lifted, vehicle trips, destination receipts and any gap between production and disposal. Without that chain, a large estimate on paper cannot show whether all liquid reached treatment.

Legacy-waste clearance does not remove today's risk

Bandhwari still holds an estimated 17.21 lakh metric tonnes of legacy waste. MCG is working towards a February 2027 deadline for clearing that stock and has said its immediate focus is on the waste-removal operation. Officials have indicated that the treatment plant can move forward after clearance and approval.

The sequencing deserves closer scrutiny. Removing old waste may reduce future leachate generation, but contaminated liquid continues to form while the material remains exposed. A permanent plant built too early could also face design changes as the landfill footprint shifts. The practical answer is not to choose one job and ignore the other; it is to maintain a verifiable interim system while approvals and site preparation proceed.

Independent monitoring wells upstream and downstream of the landfill would provide an early warning of changes in groundwater quality. Surface-water channels should be sampled after heavy rain, and tanker routes should be tracked to prevent illegal discharge away from the site.

The Rs 24 crore proposal is not yet a solution residents can see. Approval, tendering, construction, commissioning and audited performance all lie ahead. Until then, Bandhwari's environmental protection depends on drains, storage and tankers working every day without a break.