Deadline to clear dumpsites pushed to December 2027: Report

Launched in 2021 with a five-year Mission period, the initiative was supposed to be completed by October 1, 2026.

The Swachh Bharat deadline passed in October 2026, yet thousands of acres of legacy landfill sites remained in the country. The Central government has now extended its initial five-year deadline to clear dumpsites till December 2027, according to The Indian Express, which said over 1,000 lakh tonnes of waste remain spread across 4,632 dumpyards.

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs intended to remove all existing legacy dumpsites, which are old, unscientific open garbage dumps where municipal solid waste has accumulated over decades without control.

Launched in 2021 with a five-year mission, the initiative was scheduled to be completed by October 1, 2026.

Although the mission has been extended until March 2027, officials said the final deadline to remediate all legacy dumpsites will be December 2027, as clearing every single landfill will take time.

The Swachh Bharat Mission dashboard showed that, as of Wednesday, November 11, 1,402 of 2,607 dumpsites had been remediated. Work is ongoing at 1,057 sites, and 148 sites show no progress, The Indian Express reported.

“The legacy waste will be cleared, but fresh waste is still going there. The fresh waste will be processed separately,” Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal said during the Swachh Survekshan Awards on Wednesday.

He said work on Delhi’s Bhalswa landfill would be “completed by December 31.” He added that among the major cities where dumpsite clearing work is underway, Chennai and Mumbai have proven to be the most challenging.

“The Okhla site is almost clear, but Ghazipur will take one more year. Among the big cities, if there is any difficulty, it is in Chennai and Mumbai,” said Lal.

The mission aims to convert recovered materials from the legacy landfills into road-building aggregates, refuse-derived fuel, and soil enrichers, and the reclaimed land into green spaces or public infrastructure. The broader goal of the initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to transition cities from being Open Defecation Free to completely “garbage-free” and “water secure.”