Untreated waste dumped near Gurugram despite crores paid

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) awarded a tender worth ₹17.7 crore to Aadarsh Bharat Enviro Private Limited, a Pune-based company for processing 200,000 metric tonnes (MT) of legacy waste.

- Leena Dhankhar

GURUGRAM: In February 2023, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) awarded a tender worth ₹17.7 crore to Aadarsh Bharat Enviro Private Limited, a Pune-based company for processing 200,000 metric tonnes (MT) of legacy waste.

Over the next year, MCG released a series of payments totalling over ₹15 crore on the promise that the company would treat the legacy waste—comprising refuse-derived fuel, construction and demolition waste, compost and inert materials—before disposing of them in sites approved by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and National Green Tribunal (NGT).

But now, documents, photographs and eyewitness testimonies collected by HT indicate that the company allegedly bypassed scientific processes to treat the waste, and dumped toxic untreated waste at Pali village in Faridabad, roughly 20km outside the purview of MCG.

Moreover, the municipal body appears to have cleared payments—₹6.22 crore in January 2024 and ₹7.85 crore in August 2024—without adequately checking if the waste was processed according to norms, said MCG officials aware of the matter who asked not to be named.

Internal communications seen by HT also reveal alleged attempts by MCG officials to waive penalties, appearing to defy a directive by then Haryana chief secretary Sanjeev Kaushal in 2024, saying no penalty should be waived without his explicit consent.

In all, nearly 5,000 trucks, each carrying 20 metric tonnes of untreated waste, were transported to Faridabad between April 2023 and December 2023, according to MCG officials. Scientific processing of waste was allegedly circumvented, experts say, saving crores at severe ecological and public health expense.

Experts estimate that the vendor allegedly saved at least ₹4-5 crore by avoiding scientific processing. The scientific process would have cost nearly ₹2500 per MT, amounting to ₹5 crore.