Contradictory affidavits filed by the Chandigarh municipal corporation have turned the long-running problem at the Dadumajra landfill into a larger question about whether the city can accurately account for the waste it generates, processes and sends for disposal. The immediate dispute concerns legacy waste that the corporation told the Punjab and Haryana high court had been “totally bio-mined”. The deeper issue is that the figures submitted to courts over several years do not establish what happened to a substantial part of Chandigarh’s daily garbage.
The case is important because waste management depends on a chain of records. A city must know how much waste is generated, how much is separated into wet and dry streams, how much is processed, how much is rejected after processing and how much finally reaches a dumping ground. When those figures do not align, neither the performance of treatment plants nor the status of a landfill can be assessed with confidence.
The inconsistencies identified in the affidavits are not limited to a minor difference in accounting. In July 2022, the corporation told the high court that Chandigarh generated approximately 550 tonnes of garbage a day. That figure consisted of 200 tonnes of dry waste and 350 tonnes of wet waste. In its latest affidavit, filed in 2026, the corporation reported that 110 tonnes of dry waste and 200 tonnes of wet waste were being processed daily. It also stated that between 70 and 80 tonnes of mixed waste were being sent to a segregation plant.
The latest filing, as described in the report, does not state the city’s total daily waste generation or explain how the new figures relate to the 550-tonne estimate submitted in 2022. The central ambiguity is whether the 70 to 80 tonnes of mixed waste are already included in the dry- and wet-waste figures or represent an additional stream. If the streams are separate, the reported quantities do not account for all the waste previously said to be generated. If they overlap, the affidavit still does not clearly show the extent of processing and the movement of material through the system.
That uncertainty is particularly serious because the corporation’s own capacity data indicates that the wet-waste processing plant is operating at less than half of its capacity, while the dry-waste facility is operating at just over half capacity. The supplied report does not provide the installed capacity figures, so the exact unused capacity cannot be calculated from the available material. It does, however, establish a mismatch between the amount of waste the city was earlier reported to generate and the amount now reported as processed.
This is the institutional gap at the centre of the Dadumajra controversy. A processing plant can be underused for several reasons, including inadequate segregation, inconsistent collection, equipment constraints or differences in how waste streams are counted. The affidavits, as reported, do not identify which explanation applies. Without that information, capacity figures alone cannot demonstrate whether the problem lies in collection, transport, plant operations, contracting or record-keeping.
The history of the landfill adds another layer. Chandigarh contracted a private firm to process municipal garbage roughly two decades ago, yet Dadumajra continued to hold layers of legacy waste. The corporation’s latest court filing says that the legacy waste has been completely bio-mined. Bio-mining generally refers to the processing and removal of old accumulated waste, but the supplied report does not provide the quantity treated, the duration of the operation, the contractor’s performance records or independent measurements confirming the outcome.
The court record therefore appears to contain two different kinds of information: a categorical statement about the status of the old landfill and a set of unresolved figures about the city’s ongoing waste flows. Those issues are connected but not identical. Removing legacy waste from Dadumajra does not, by itself, establish that the city’s current waste is being fully processed or that new material is not continuing to accumulate elsewhere.
The reporting also points to a second accounting problem involving waste left after processing. In 2022, the corporation stated that 15% to 20% of processed waste was sent to the dumping ground. That figure raises a basic operational question: what volume of residual waste is now being sent for disposal, and how does it relate to the daily generation and processing numbers in the latest affidavit? The supplied material does not provide a revised percentage or a current tonnage, leaving the post-processing stage unresolved.
For municipal administration, this matters because waste data is not merely a technical annexure to litigation. It informs plant design, transport contracts, land requirements, environmental compliance and the cost of public services. A city that reports 550 tonnes of daily generation in one filing and later lists processing quantities without stating total generation cannot show whether its infrastructure is adequate. It also cannot transparently demonstrate whether the gap is being reduced, transferred between facilities or omitted from the accounting system.
The court setting makes the issue more consequential. Figures submitted to the Punjab and Haryana high court and the National Green Tribunal form part of the public accountability surrounding landfill management. When numbers change, a subsequent filing needs to identify the reason: a revised survey, a change in measurement methodology, altered waste composition, improved segregation or a genuine change in generation. The report does not indicate that such a reconciliation has been provided.
The question raised by petitioner Amrit Sharma captures the unresolved operational concern: if the amount of waste has increased, why is more of it not being processed, and where is it going? The question cannot be answered from the current figures alone. It requires a daily material-flow account that begins at collection and ends at processing, recovery, residual disposal or final use. It also requires the corporation to distinguish clearly between wet waste, dry waste, mixed waste, legacy waste and post-processing residue.
The absence of a reconciled baseline also limits public understanding of the city’s progress. A claim that the Dadumajra legacy waste has been totally bio-mined may indicate completion of a major remediation exercise, but completion needs to be read alongside current operations. If processing plants are operating below capacity while reported generation figures remain unexplained, the city’s waste challenge may have shifted from accumulated legacy waste to weak control over daily flows—or the available records may simply be measuring different things.
This distinction should be resolved through the next set of official filings and operational records. The corporation would need to present a consistent total for daily generation, identify the share of wet, dry and mixed waste, show the quantity entering each facility, record the material recovered or treated, and state the residual quantity sent to a dumping ground. The same reporting framework would make it possible to compare the 2022 position with the 2026 affidavit without relying on assumptions about overlapping categories.
The Dadumajra case thus reveals a governance problem that extends beyond one landfill. Urban waste systems are often evaluated through visible assets—processing plants, segregation facilities and cleared dumping grounds—but their real performance depends on whether the administration can trace material through the entire system. In Chandigarh, the available court filings, as reviewed in the report, do not yet provide that complete chain.
What the evidence confirms is a conflict between earlier waste-generation figures and the quantities listed in the latest affidavit, alongside underused processing capacity and unresolved data about residual disposal. What remains unclear is the actual destination of the unaccounted waste and whether the apparent gap reflects changed measurement, overlapping categories or a failure to process and record the material. The next official clarification will determine whether the city has a data problem, a capacity problem, an operational problem—or all three.
