PIB TrackerBhalswa holds 141,000 tonnes an acre; Raichur holds 1,800
Four dumpsites, four tonnages, four acreages. The same remediation work runs at densities eighty times apart, which is why a national tonnage target says little about how many sites get cleared.
What happened
- A PIB Backgrounder documented legacy dumpsite remediation under SBM-U (Oct 2014) and SBM-U 2.0 (Oct 2021).
- The Dumpsite Remediation Accelerator Programme (DRAP) was launched in November 2025 to fast-track the remaining sites.
- Swachhata Hi Seva was launched nationally from Bhalswa in September 2025, and the site was taken up for accelerated remediation.
- Biomining separates legacy waste into refuse-derived fuel, black soil, recyclables and inert material; RDF goes to cement plants for co-processing.
- Reclaimed land was reused four ways: an eco park, a processing facility, a Miyawaki forest, and low-lying land filled with recovered soil.
For Prelims
- SBM-U: launched October 2014. SBM-U 2.0: launched October 2021, with legacy dumpsite remediation as a distinct objective.
- Lakshya Zero Dumpsite: the structured, time-bound remediation initiative under SBM-U 2.0. DRAP (November 2025) is the mission-mode accelerator on top of it.
- Biomining: excavating aged waste and separating it into RDF, black soil, recyclables and inerts - a recovery process, not a disposal one.
- RDF co-processing: refuse-derived fuel is burned in cement kilns, which is how the recovered calorific fraction leaves the site.
- The 2025 numbers: 3.66 crore MT remediated in the calendar year; 459 ULBs in 29 States reached complete remediation.
- Miyawaki method: dense, fast-growing native plantation - here 5-7 acres at Raichur with 60,000 bamboo and native saplings from 5 June 2026, World Environment Day.
- The tracking instruments: City Solid Waste Action Plans, the SBM-U portal, and annual Swachh Survekshan rankings.
- Why density matters: Bhalswa at about 141,000 t/acre against Raichur at about 1,800 t/acre - tonnage measures the mound, acreage measures the land recovered, and they are not interchangeable.
For UPSC: The rare waste-management document that attaches tonnages to acreages, which is what lets you argue about targets rather than repeat them. Use it on urban solid waste and SBM-U 2.0, on land as an urban resource, and on the circular economy, where RDF going to cement kilns is the concrete example of recovery rather than disposal.
What it is NOT: The backgrounder gives no cost for any site, no cost per tonne and no funding split between Centre, State and ULB, so nothing here can be judged for value. It gives no total for how many legacy dumpsites remain nationally or how much tonnage is still to be cleared, which is what a figure of 3.66 crore tonnes in a year would have to be read against. Gorakhpur's total tonnage is not stated, only its daily rate; Nagpur's reclaimed acreage is "acres" without a number. There is no post-remediation monitoring data - no groundwater, leachate or soil-contamination readings for any of the four sites. And the fresh-waste question is acknowledged only at Bhalswa, so whether the other three cities have stopped adding to their dumpsites is not said.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS3.14 · GS2.10 · Linkage L2
Anchor
Bhalswa has yielded 99.07 lakh tonnes of legacy waste from about 70 acres. Raichur yielded 62,252 tonnes from 35 acres. That is roughly 141,000 tonnes an acre against 1,800 - the same programme, the same process, and a difference of nearly eighty times in what the land was holding.
Substantiation (data)
The rates follow the densities. Gorakhpur was biomined at about 400 tonnes a day. Bhalswa has cleared 99.07 lakh tonnes in roughly four years of continuous work, which averages close to 6,800 tonnes a day - about seventeen times Gorakhpur's rate, on a site not twice the size.
Position
Land, not tonnage, is the output that matters. Raichur processed less than one per cent of Bhalswa's tonnage and recovered 22 acres for a Miyawaki forest; Gorakhpur recovered its full 40 acres for a park drawing 500 people a day. A national target set in crore tonnes rewards the tall mounds and is largely indifferent to how many cities get their land back.
Counterpoint
The tonnage target is not arbitrary either. Legacy mounds are the fire, leachate and methane risk, and 99.07 lakh tonnes removed from a Delhi mound is a larger public-health gain than 22 acres of reclaimed land in Raichur. The two measures answer different questions, and the programme needs both.
Problematisation
No cost appears anywhere in the document, for any site, at any stage. Nor does the national denominator: how many dumpsites remain, and how much tonnage. Without either, 3.66 crore tonnes in a year cannot be read as fast or slow, and no site can be judged efficient. There is also no post-remediation groundwater or soil data for any of the four.
Conclusion
The instructive part is the variance rather than the totals. Remediation at Bhalswa and remediation at Raichur are different engineering problems wearing the same programme name, and a scheme reported in aggregate tonnes will always look like the former while most Indian cities are the latter.
Deploys into: Urban solid waste and SBM-U 2.0 · Circular economy and resource recovery · Land as an urban resource · Measuring scheme performance: tonnage versus outcome
PIB Backgrounder · 2026-09-21 · PRID 2313052 · PIB source ↗