Illegal dumping plagues Mangar

Mangar village in Faridabad is emerging as a new epicentre of illegal dumping, with hundreds of tonnes of waste from the Bandhwari landfill being offloaded into the fragile ecosystem of the Aravalli hills in recent days, according to environmentalists and locals.

- Leena Dhankhar

GURUGRAM: Mangar village in Faridabad is emerging as a new epicentre of illegal dumping, with hundreds of tonnes of waste from the Bandhwari landfill being offloaded into the fragile ecosystem of the Aravalli hills in recent days, according to environmentalists and locals.

Starting Friday, birders and environmentalists said they saw multiple dumper trucks transporting untreated "compost waste" — likely laden with plastics, heavy metals, and toxins — into Mangar's Gair Mumkin Pahar zone, which spans 3,810 acres. Of this, 1,132 acres are protected under Sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), while the remaining land falls under the "forest status to be decided" category, where non-forest activity is prohibited.