A huge pile of garbage at the Jawahar Nagar landfill in the suburbs of Hyderabad. | Photo credit: RAMAKRISHNA G
Garbage trucks resumed their trips to the Jawahar Nagar solid waste management facility on Saturday, two days after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directed the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation not to bring any fresh waste to the site.
After hearing a petition against pollution caused by the old landfill at the site, the NGT on October 28 ordered the GHMC to stop the transportation of fresh solid waste to Jawahar Nagar until a report on disposal of the old waste is submitted to IIT Bombay.
The South NGT bench hearing the case also imposed an embargo on the rejected derivative fuel. However, it allowed the processing of existing waste at the facility.
At a loss of any other alternative, the GHMC continued to take the waste to the site in violation of the order. Senior officials said the civic body has no other place to store the waste for four days till the final order is delivered.
“We will challenge the order as it is not a workable solution. The only other site we have is at Pyarnagar and the NGT also remains at that site,” the official said.
Pyaranagar in Sangareddy district witnessed tumultuous protests by local residents when the GHMC tried to set up a processing plant on a 150-acre government land there. Two other sites identified by the GHMC, at Lakdaram in Medak district and Khanapur in Rangareddy district, are stuck due to land issues.
Jawahar Nagar receives an average of 9,684 metric tonnes of solid waste per day. Of this, 8,500 tonnes comes from the GHMC alone and the remaining portion is contributed by the surrounding 14 municipalities/corporations.
The petitioners in the NGT sought directions to comply with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and the 2018 order of the NGT Central Committee directing the GHMC to start bio-mining of 12 million tonnes of old waste as a permanent solution to the problem.
GHMC said it could not receive any response to the tender notice for biomining, while IIT-Bombay, appointed by GHMC as a technical expert, does not recommend Biomining citing health risks.
Published – 8 Nov 2025 21:23 IST
