Opinion | India's 'Swacch' Drive Has A Mountain-Sized Blindspot

Updated: Oct 16, 2026 16:50 pm IST Published On Oct 16, 2026 16:50 pm IST Last Updated On Oct 16, 2026 16:50 pm IST

Published On Oct 16, 2026 16:50 pm IST

Last Updated On Oct 16, 2026 16:50 pm IST

Every morning in east Delhi, trucks climb a hill that was never meant to exist. Ghazipur began taking the city's waste in 1984 and was supposed to stop at about 40 metres. A court-appointed commissioner who visited in March 2025 found it at roughly 60 metres, cracked on top, and venting methane. Fires break out regularly. Three decades of cleanliness drives have produced a clean pavement and a burning mountain a few kilometres away.

The Swachh Bharat Mission, launched in 2014, is rightly celebrated for its toilets and door-to-door collection. Its record on what happens after the dustbin is lifted is far weaker. Calling this a "complete collapse" in every city goes beyond the evidence. Calling the official numbers reassuring does too. The honest description is a mission that measured what was easy, declared success early, and left the hard, expensive downstream work half done.

Official dashboards say India's cities generate about 161,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste a day and that roughly 80-82% is processed.........

© NDTV