Ludhiana: A high-profile Rs 53 crore project to tackle city’s mounting waste crisis is on the verge of termination, more than a year after a private firm failed to begin processing daily refuse at the Jamalpur dumping site.The failure to manage the city’s fresh waste has stalled efforts to clear “legacy” mountains of rubbish, threatening to undermine a multi-million-rupee land reclamation project intended to free 41 acres of prime municipal land. The project, launched in Dec 2024, was designed to process between 700 and 1,000 metric tonnes of waste daily. However, the initiative has been plagued by mutual delays.
The contractor, Greentech Environ Management, initially failed to transport the necessary machinery to the site. The municipal corporation (MC) reportedly delayed handing over the land required for the composting process. Ludhiana generates about 1,100 MT of rubbish every day. Without a mechanism for fresh waste, experts warn that the ongoing bioremediation of existing “legacy waste” is essentially futile, as new refuse replaces what is cleared.Official UltimatumsMunicipal officials are now moving toward a “face-saving” exit from the agreement. Mayor Inderjit Kaur, who recently conducted a site inspection, confirmed that the firm has been served formal notices. “I personally visited the dump site and did not find anything satisfactory there,” the mayor said. “We are spending significant funds on the bioremediation of legacy waste, but there is no point unless fresh waste is also tackled. If the firm does not take over the work properly, the contract will be terminated.”A History of FailuresThe current deadlock follows a string of unsuccessful attempts to modernise Ludhiana’s waste management. The Green Charcoal Project, based on a previous Memorandum of Understanding with a Chennai-based firm to convert 400 MT of waste into fuel was recently cancelled. Legacy stagnation is another challenge. While bioremediation continues at Jamalpur and Jainpur, the lack of fresh-processing infrastructure means the city remains trapped in a cycle of accumulating waste.Should the contract with Greentech be terminated, the MC will be forced to restart the tendering process, likely delaying a solution for the city’s environmental hazards into late 2026.
