Activists seek Centre’s help to check leachate discharge into Aravalis

Environmentalists, wildlife activists, and locals have sought immediate intervention by the Union Environment Ministry into the recurring illegal discharge of highly toxic, untreated leachate into the Aravalis from the Bandhwari landfill site on the Gurugram-Faridabad road, causing a health hazard to residents and wildlife.

In a letter to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, wildlife activist Vaishali Rana said that despite continuous complaints, orders, and monitoring by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), leachate continued to be discharged from the Bandhwari landfill into the surrounding Aravali forest and up to the outskirts of the village Bandhwari for almost three years.

The wildlife activist, pursuing the matter in the NGT since 2015, said in the letter that she was “writing in desperation and with the last hope of getting some relief from an environmental and human crisis that has been unfolding for nearly a decade in the Aravali”.

Attaching the latest videos and pictures, she claimed that the landfill lay barely a kilometre uphill from the village, and therefore, there was a continuous flow of leachate downhill directly towards the village and its surroundings.

“The crisis is not only humanitarian but ecological – the Aravali forest and its wildlife are being severely impacted. Multiple geo-stamped photographs and videos have been submitted to the NGT over the years showing leachate pooling in forest depressions and contaminating wildlife water holes,” she said, blaming the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) for the situation.

Ms. Rana alleged that the MCG claimed there was a garland drain around the landfill to prevent leachate from flowing into the Aravalis, but there was none.

She said the matter had been repeatedly brought to the notice of the Chief Wildlife Warden, Panchkula, and was also pending before the Haryana Human Rights Commission (HHRC) for the past two years, but there had been no improvement on the ground. The HHRC has sought a report from the Chief Secretary in this connection, but there has been no response on the two previous hearings. The next hearing is on November 25.

She demanded that the area of the landfill site be demarcated by the forest department, alleging that the MCG had encroached upon around 20 acre of the forest land surrounding the site.

HHRC member Deep Bhatia told The Hindu that the leachate discharge was a grave matter concerning humanity and the ecology, and he had visited the site in 2023, taking cognisance of media reports. He added that the problem was caused by the government’s delay in tackling the legacy waste at the site and ensuring its regular processing. Mr. Bhatia said the government should take the matter seriously and address the inordinate delay in dealing with it.

The Hindu tried reaching out to MCG commissioner Pradeep Dahiya but there was no response.