In a report submitted to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) regarding the silt dumping site in north Delhi’s Singhola, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) informed the tribunal that although the site was cleared, 59,173.4 metric tonnes of silt was dumped there again over the past year.
The civic body said it initiated the process of establishing a 700-tonnes-per-day (TPD) facility to process fresh waste and silt to prevent the formation of new mounds. The accumulated silt will be removed once the facility becomes operational in November 2026, according to the MCD affidavit.
The NGT took suo motu cognisance of a Hindustan Times report, New waste mounds creep up on capital, published on November 4, 2024, which highlighted poor waste management practices leading to the growth of two waste mounds at Singhola and Narela.
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These sites are in addition to the Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla landfill sites.
In an earlier hearing, the green tribunal directed the MCD to disclose the quantity of waste dumped at the site again.
In an affidavit filed on October 13, 2026, the MCD said that “owing to the urgency of pre-monsoon desilting operations, MCD had to resume the deposition of silt at the Singhola site.”
However, it added that “only the silt extracted from drains during annual drain desilting operations has been dumped at the Singhola site.”
Since July 2025, approximately 59,173.9 metric tonnes of silt was dumped there, the affidavit said.
Also Read:‘Had to resume dumping on cleared Singhola waste mound’: MCD to NGT
Silt dumping at the 7.2-acre Singhola site began on a temporary basis for two years following the collapse of a section of the Ghazipur landfill in 2017.
The site, near Singhola Khampur village, was used to divert and dispose of silt extracted from drains.
By July 2022, approximately nine lakh metric tonnes of silt had accumulated at the site.
MCD officials said the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Irrigation and Flood Control Department of the Delhi government also deposited drain silt there. The MCD subsequently awarded work for the bio-mining and disposal of processed material, and the site was cleared last year. However, silt dumping operations resumed thereafter.
To put this fresh silt dump quantity in perspective, the silt dumped at Singhola is only a fraction of the accumulated waste at Delhi’s legacy landfill sites, which have been in operation for decades.
For instance, approximately 1.5 million metric tonnes (15.06 lakh tonnes) of newer and remaining waste was still left at the Okhla landfill site in August, following the clearance of historical legacy waste accumulated up to 2025.