Chipping away at the mountain of trash

In the third of a four-part series, HT decodes why civic administrations fail to deliver on basic indicators of livability to ensure clean, unclogged and walkable cities

- Shivani Singh

As garbage piled up in the ‘open spaces of Gurugram makes hashtags like #Kudagram trend on social media, a group of frustrated residents, including expats, of posh gated communities, have taken it upon themselves to remove trash from the streets every weekend.

In Bengaluru, India’s IT hub, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the founder of Biocon and a city resident, renewed the debate about garbage mismanagement with her viral post on X. This March, villagers blocked the garbage trucks from accessing a nearby landfill, claiming it contaminated their groundwater. This was not the first such blockade in what was once proudly referred to as the “garden” city of India.

As waste mismanagement in Indian cities increasingly threatens public health and the environment, most residents still do not bother about the quantity or destination of the trash they discard. This mirrors the administrative apathy towards adopting sustainable practices aimed at reducing, reusing, recycling, and safely disposing of garbage.

Given the well-recognised benefits of clean urban environments and the Union government's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which has focused on improving sanitation in mission-mode for the past Il years, only a few cities have meaningfully reformed their waste management systems, while the majority show only moderate or minimal progress.

This is why.

The ‘cleanest’ of them all

Indore was feted as India’s cleanest city for seven consecutive years on the national Swachh Survekshan ranking launched in 2016. It now sits in the ‘Super Swachh League’ category of cleanest cities in the country. But longtime residents recall the time when the city used to get choked by foul air, garbage spillovers, and sewage backflows. Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargav says that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, launched by the Centre in 2014, marked a turning point when the political and administrative leadership prioritised sanitation. Those who followed stayed on course.