By: Munieshwar.SagarCHANDIGARH: Contradictory affidavits to the court about the layers of forgotten trash piled high in Dadumajra have exposed wide gaps in how much waste this city produces and processes.Two decades after contracting a private firm to process municipal garbage, the municipal corporation told the Punjab and Haryana high court on Oct 7 that legacy waste at the Dadumajra landfill had been “totally bio-mined”.But a review of affidavits that the civic body submitted to the high court and the National Green Tribunal over the past decade reveals significant inconsistencies and unexplained figures.In July 2022, the corporation submitted in the high court that Chandigarh generated about 550 tonnes of garbage daily, comprising 200 tonnes of dry waste and 350 tonnes of wet waste.Its latest 2026 affidavit states that 110 tonnes of dry waste and 200 tonnes of wet waste are processed daily, alongside 70 to 80 tonnes of mixed waste directed to a segregation plant. The filing omits total daily generation figures and fails to reconcile the new data with 2022 estimates.Depending on whether mixed waste overlaps with dry and wet waste metrics, a substantial portion of daily garbage remains unaccounted for. Corporation capacity data indicates the wet-waste processing plant operates at less than half capacity, while the dry-waste facility operates at just over half capacity.“Four years on, if the waste has grown, why is it not being processed?” asked petitioner Amrit Sharma. “And more importantly, where is it going?”Discrepancies also surround post-processing waste. In 2022, the corporation stated that 15% to 20% of processed waste was sent to the dumping ground.
