Clearing Deonar landfill for Dharavi redevelopment will cost city ₹2,000 crore; tender issued

The civic authorities have set in motion the process to clear a century's solid waste from Mumbai's oldest, and largest, dumping yard — that's 20 million tonnes of garbage on 123 acres — so that it can house Dharavi's slum-dwellers who are ineligible for in-situ rehabilitation.

- Yogesh Naik

MUMBAI:

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is finalising a tender to clear the solid waste at the Deonar dumping yard, and appoint an agency for biomining at the site. The project, which has a deadline of three years, will cost the taxpayer ₹2,000 crore.

The 326 acres on which the Deonar dumping ground stands is owned by the state government, which leased it to the BMC in the 1920s to dump the city's solid waste. As Mumbai's population grew, so did the amount of waste it generated — currently 6,000 tonnes a day. Over time, mountains of garbage began to pile up, reaching a staggering 40 metres, roughly the height of a 13-storey building.