India, Aug. 5 -- At Okhla, the effort to bring down one of Delhi's most prominent waste mountains is entering a critical phase. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is racing to process the remaining waste while preventing fresh garbage from rebuilding what it has spent years removing. A total of 8.8 million metric tonnes (MT) of waste has so far undergone bio mining and bioremediation at the Okhla landfill, officials said. Around 8.4 million MT of waste accumulated up to 2025 has been processed, while approximately 1.5 million MT of waste generated over the past one-and-a-half years remains to be cleared. Also Read - Factory wall collapse kills two firefighters MCD Commissioner Sanjeev Khirwar inspected the landfill on Tuesday and reviewed the ongoing operations. He directed officials to accelerate the disposal of the remaining waste as well as the fresh waste arriving at the site. He also ordered the paving of the access road to facilitate the movement of heavy vehicles. Spread over nearly 62 acres, the Okhla landfill has been undergoing biomining since 2019 following directions from the National Green Tribunal to tackle Delhi's legacy waste dumpsites. The process involves excavating and mechanically segregating old waste into recyclable, combustible and inert material. Combustible fractions can be processed into refuse-derived fuel, while inert material is recovered for reuse. Also Read - GZB: Kanwariya killed in NH-9 road accident, another dies after snakebite The pace of biomining at Okhla has increased substantially, with processing capacity reported to have risen from around 6,000 MT to nearly 10,000 MT a day. One of the site's two major waste mounds has also been levelled. But the challenge extends beyond clearing the existing waste. Fresh garbage continues to reach the site, raising the prospect of replacing the waste being removed. The MCD is developing a facility with a proposed capacity of 1,400 MT a day to process fresh waste, with the project targeted for completion in October. The civic body is also working on a Construction and Demolition waste processing facility at Okhla and plans to expand waste-processing infrastructure to reduce dependence on landfills. The latest deadline for Okhla's clearance is October 2026, following several earlier extensions. For the MCD, therefore, the task is no longer merely to dismantle an old garbage mountain. It is to ensure that the mountain does not return.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.