Nagubai Chaudhary, 52, always believed that the land would take care of her, and it did. For as long as she can remember. But in 2025, parts of western and central Maharashtra received unseasonal rains. The sudden flood destroyed the Kharif crop.

When the land started drying up, Nagubai and her husband, Malinath, 60, had to quickly think about how to survive this season. “We paid to level the damaged topsoil, and sowed onions. They usually yield early. But the crop failed. This led to more debt,” said Nagubai, wiping her tears with the end of her floral pink sari.

Then, her husband died. He had to repay the loan of ₹14 lakh taken for farming and the hospitalization expenses of Malinath.

Nagubai and her husband owned 1.5 acres of land in Chincholi village in Dharashiv district of Maharashtra. He was forced to sell one acre of land to repay the loan. “I have lost my husband, land and a crop,” she says.

Maharashtra’s agriculture department estimates that 30 lakh farmers were affected by the floods last year, which destroyed 65 lakh hectares of crop area during August and September. Due to the rain, soybean fields were destroyed in Vidarbha, onions rotted in Nashik, pulses were destroyed in Marathwada and paddy fields in low-lying areas were flooded.

The Maharashtra government announced a relief package of ₹31,628 crore on 7 October. In the months that followed, many farmers say that despite government assessments, they have no clear idea of ​​how much they are owed. Nagubai says she was promised only ₹2,500 two months before her husband died. Sitting in a small pink room, one corner of which has been designated as the kitchen, she explains: “Even this money is stuck because I still don’t have my husband’s death certificate.”

According to the State Relief and Rehabilitation Department, compensation for crop loss was ₹18,500 per hectare for rain-fed land (1 hectare is 2.5 acres), ₹27,000 per hectare for irrigated land, ₹32,500 per hectare for horticultural or perennial land (like gardens). Additionally, if the topsoil was washed away, the farmer was to get ₹47,000 per hectare.

To help restore the topsoil, the government promised to employ people through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) scheme, which guarantees 100 days of work to the unemployed.

Nagubai now survives on the money left over from the land deal, Rs 1,500 per month from the Sanjay Gandhi grant-in-aid scheme for people below the poverty line, and paid work under MNREGA. A portion of the topsoil on her land was washed away, she says, but she has spent ₹14,000 to restore it. No government help was received. Many farmers from the six worst-affected districts of Marathwada as well as Solapur in western Maharashtra say they have not received full compensation. Many farmers now pay from their own pockets or take second loans to improve their lands and prepare for Rabi crops.

In Dharashiv, Maharashtra government has identified 7.03 lakh farmers affected by the floods. Collector Kirti Kiran Pujar says that till now compensation has been given to 5.2 lakh people. “The rest will receive the funds after e-KYC (Know Your Customer) is done. Most of the farmers have received relief. Relief will be given under MNREGA and top soil-replacement funds as per the claims raised by the farmers with the gram panchayat.” The ministry, headquartered in Maharashtra’s administrative headquarters in Mumbai, did not respond to queries on data on affected areas.

During the announcement of the relief package, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said, “The package will be distributed to farmers covering 29 (out of 36) districts, 253 (out of 358) talukas and over 2,000 revenue areas before Diwali (in 2025). However, no one can compensate 100% of the financial and mental distress of farmers.”

According to the Collector’s office, 36 farmers committed suicide in Dharashiv from January to April, 2026, while from July to December, 2025, 78 farmers committed suicide.

lost fields

A group of farmers from Rajegaon village have gathered in a classroom of the government Zilla Parishad school. Narayan Deshmukh, 52, sits on a chair in front of a wall decorated with photographs of India’s leaders from different eras: Fatima Sheikh, Savitribai Phule, Indira Gandhi. “Time is running out. Gradually the size of my land will shrink. The rains caused huge damage. What will happen to our lost agricultural land? Restoration will cost more than government aid,” he says, then admits, “but every little amount counts.”

Narayan’s farm is on the banks of the Terana River and receives at least 30% rainfall during the unseasonal rains. Guntas His 5 acres of land was washed away. “This has now become an annual occurrence, as rainfall increases. The government opens the gates of the Terana dam without informing and water seeps into the fields,” he says. Other farmers in the group also highlighted the same issue.

Dharashiv district consists of eight talukas including Umarga, where Rajegaon is located. It covers 7,569 square kilometers and is characterized by semi-arid terrain with hilly plateaus and river valleys. Last year the Manjara, Terna and Sina rivers were in spate, causing excess water to enter fields, affecting 159 villages in six talukas.

This was also experienced in Solapur, with soil erosion, sand accumulation and loss of fertility, especially in the river valleys. About 186 km from Rajegaon is Beed’s Majalgaon taluka, where Baliram Gholap, 30, who owns 5 acres of land, also says he has not received assistance for topsoil restoration.

“I got only ₹1,000. I don’t want money. Can the government get the restoration work done?” Depending on the quality of soil and labour, hiring an earth mover costs a minimum of ₹8,000, and the price of 1 brass ranges from ₹3,000 to 6,000, says Gholap.

Gholap, a cotton sower, suffered a loss of Rs 1.5 lakh due to unseasonal rains.

He says, “If the cotton had been harvested, I would have earned at least ₹3 lakh. I had borrowed ₹1 lakh and now I cannot repay the instalments.” He can no longer do farming and now works in a sugar factory at a salary of ₹10,000 per month. If he does not take leave, he gets ₹2,000 more. “I will take up farming next year, when conditions are favourable.”

Samadhan Mhaske, another farmer from Solapur’s Undargaon, near the Sena river, wipes his face and says, “Where is the ₹47,000 per hectare or the MNREGA help? At least 1.5 hectares of topsoil was washed away and huge mounds emerged.”

Along with his extended family members, he has 4 hectares of irrigated land and has so far received ₹35,000 through direct bank transfer. He also claims that 150 farmers like him have not received any compensation for topsoil restoration. There are 17 more villages near the Sina River, including Kewal, where the waters of the Sina River entered the fields and carried away a part of the fertile soil, leaving silt behind.

Low response to MNREGA

Under the MNREGA scheme, facial recognition is mandatory while logging in and out of the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app. It has digital presence, geo-tag assets, Aadhaar-based payment system and real-time monitoring of operations. Many farmers are facing problems due to delays in Aadhaar verification and bank linking, leading to pending wage payments among elderly workers, women and people from remote villages struggling with biometric authentication and smartphone-based attendance.

Nagubai, who also has a job card under MNREGA, says, “The payment is irregular. I started working in January and got paid in March. That too ₹312 per day. If I had worked outside the government scheme, I could have earned ₹500.”

Government officials have acknowledged that offtake is low due to irregular payments.

Vidyasagar Gaikwad, 47, of Chincholi village in Dharashiv, works as an ad-hoc assistant to maintain the presence of MNREGA workers on the app. She and members of Maharashtra Gram Rozgar Sahayak Sanstha, a citizens’ group founded in 2016 to fight for the rights of MGNREGA workers, are at the protest.

He says that thumb impression and facial recognition are not reliable technologies. “At a time, there are 70 works going on in the village. I have to visit every place twice a day. And now with two shifts, almost four times a day, I cover a distance of at least 15 km. The government asks to spend two hours on this, but we spend almost half the day marking attendance,” he says.

hope of insurance

After unseasonal rains and flash floods, crops disappeared overnight and insurance survey teams emerged. According to the agriculture department, there were 49,601 claims amounting to more than ₹2,226 crore in Dharashiv alone. Many farmers say that they are waiting for the insurance money.

In Rajegaon, Avinash Deshmukh, 42, a sunburnt farmer dressed in a clean white shirt and brown trousers, says pointing towards the river flowing near his farm: “It’s been nine months and I still haven’t been able to fix the potholes. I did everything as per the rules: got insured, paid the premium on time, reported the loss, yet I am still waiting for the insurance amount.”

To calculate insurance claims, the Government of Maharashtra uses a combination of crop cutting experiments (CCE) and satellite imagery. Under CCE, the State conducts sample harvest in selected farms of a village or insurance unit area. They harvest, weigh the produce and estimate the average yield per hectare, giving them the actual yield (AY) for that area. This assessment year is compared to the yield limit (YT), which is calculated in advance using historical production data. If AY is less than YT, farmers become eligible for compensation.

Agriculture department officials, who did not want to be named, claim that the insurance company says there is a discrepancy between satellite-based yield estimates, which show more crop damage, and CCE data, which show less damage.

As farmers wait for the next monsoon, they are hopeful that there will be no adverse weather conditions this time.

snehal.mutha@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew

Summer arrived with full force in Tamil Nadu this April, leading to an immediate increase in power demand. Maximum demand reached 21,307 megawatts (MW) on 29 April. On the same day, the state witnessed a maximum power consumption of 471.45 million units (MU). This year, demand has regularly crossed 21,000 MW due to heat. Last year, the high demand was less than the 2024 requirement. The maximum demand recorded in 2024 was 20,830 MW on 2 May, and the highest consumption recorded was 454.32 MU on 30 April.

However, there have been no major power cuts this year, as happens when demand increases. However, there are complaints of low voltage and supply disruption in many areas of Chennai. The capital consumes about 5,000 MW, and the maximum demand reached 4,769 MW on May 31, 2024.

Network upgraded

Over the past few years, electricity managers have initiated projects to upgrade the transmission network. However, he says that despite the upgrades, disruptions occur due to punctures in the underground cable network or disruptions in overhead cables.

A senior official of Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Limited (TNPDCL) says that due to the heat this year, the demand for electricity in all the districts has crossed the previous maximum limit. But the power department anticipated the demand and prepared well: the state’s installed capacity is about 40,000 MW, including 17,000 MW of thermal power and 13,000 MW of wind and solar power.

In Chennai, people in the western suburbs of Avadi, Pattabhiram, Thandurai and Thiruninravur have been regularly affected by low voltage and disruptions. Residential areas in Avadi, which was upgraded as a municipal corporation, have grown in recent times. A proposal was made to underground the overhead cables for residents of Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) flats. But the work has not been started. Consumer activist T. Sadagopan says it has been more than five years since the work of upgrading the 110 KV substation to 230 KV in Avadi began. But the project is progressing at a slow pace, resulting in supply disruptions in nearby Pattabhiram and Thandurai. He points out that although the 110 KV substation at Pattabhiram was opened in 2007, the improvement work has not been done regularly. A massive fire broke out in the substation, causing supply disruption in Pattabhiram for more than 48 hours.

S Dharanidharan, a resident of TNHB area in Avadi, says Tidal Park in Avadi does not have the dedicated substation required to power the 21 floors. The Avadi-Poonamallee corridor has many multi-storey apartments and gated communities. But as promised, the gated communities do not yet have substations and transformers.

TNPDCL officials say they have planned well by purchasing 1,500 MW of medium term power to meet the peak demand and avoid buying expensive power from the exchange. The share of medium term power in the total available energy of 25,000 MW is 2,300 MW.

“Every year we expect a 5% to 6% growth in demand; but this year it has gone up by more than 7%,” says a senior TNPDCL official. The Central Energy Authority in its report has estimated that the state will reach a peak demand of 21,959 MW. In anticipation, TNPDCL set up substations in the city and outskirts and replaced conventional transformers with 5,500 ring main units (RMUs).

substation installed

The Energy Department has set up substations and upgraded existing substations from Virudhunagar to North Chennai and Coimbatore to supply electricity across the state. The 765-kV network will help reduce transmission losses, carry large amounts of power and ensure reliable supply. Augmentation work has been carried out on seven of the 400-kV substations, 11 of the 230-kV substations and 60 of the 110-kV substations.

In the Coimbatore region, which includes Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Nilgiris districts, demand has reached an all-time high of 3,109 MW this year. Summer demand is usually less than 2,700 MW. But this year it has gradually increased from 2,900 MW to 3,100 MW every month. Average daily consumption also reached 59.63 MU as against 57.39 MU in March. A substantial number of wind and solar power plants in the highly industrialized Tiruppur and Coimbatore districts have helped in providing steady and stable supply to the city.

In Erode, the average demand this summer reached 1,000 MW per day. The daily demand during summer at Erode and Gobchettipalayam averages 800 MW. TNPDCL officials say solar power generation supports day time consumption, while the surge in night time demand is being met with adequate supply.

Namakkal residents are unhappy with the delay in the completion of the 20-MW Kolli Hills Hydro Electric Project, estimated to cost ₹338.79 crore. Its foundation was laid in December 2018. Its commissioning was scheduled for April 2021. The work was halted due to the COVID-19 lockdown and after that it slowed down again. The project is still under implementation.

Solar power has come as a big relief to the electricity department to manage the peak hour demand in the Tiruchi region, which includes Tiruchi, Dindigul, Perambalur, Ariyalur and Pudukkottai districts. The region recorded the highest demand of 1,760 MW in the first week of May. Demand in April and May will generally be around 1,500 MW-1600 MW.

According to official sources, there is no power cut in the area during peak demand season, except during times of heavy rain. Private solar power units in various parts of the region have helped power managers meet demand during peak hours. “We have an installed capacity of 661 MW of solar power by private companies. The bright sunshine helped them utilize the infrastructure to maximize production. This has helped us manage the daytime power demand,” says a senior TNPDC official in Tiruchi.

rain to the rescue

Even though power managers are confident about managing demand in the delta districts, sudden rains have helped reduce demand. The official says that with the arrival of the south-west monsoon the demand will gradually reduce.

TNPDCL officials also hope that wind power generation, which has remained stable so far in May, from an installed capacity of over 9,000 MW, will increase in the coming months. In Tirunelveli and Tenkasi districts, where there are more than 15 lakh electricity connections, the demand has reached 500 MW this summer. The saving grace is the supply from coal-based thermal power plants in neighboring Thoothukudi. There is sufficient stock of coal in these plants. Hence there is no hindrance in generation. A senior official of TNPDCL in Tirunelveli says wind power generators in the southern part of Tirunelveli district will start production from the end of May with the onset of south-west monsoon in Kanniyakumari district and neighboring Kerala.

lack of components

However, officials are concerned about the shortage of components, including electric poles and transformers, as well as the large number of vacancies for maintenance workers. A senior official of Tirunelveli circle says more than 70% of the posts of wiremen and helpers are vacant in Tirunelveli and Tenkasi districts. But the department is handling the situation with the available manpower and contract workers. However, any delay in filling these vacancies could lead to problems in resolving power disruptions, in addition to revenue loss.

Kanniyakumari residents want the pumped storage project at Velimalai to be expedited. The government announced the project in the 2025 budget. As of now, only the tender has been issued for selection of developer for the 1,000-MW/6,000-MW Velimalai Pumped Storage Hydro-Electric Project.

net loss

According to power managers, the total loss of the power department has crossed the ₹1 lakh crore mark due to the 200 units of free power announced by the new government and the burden will get worse. With the new scheme, the annual tariff subsidy for domestic consumers alone is estimated to exceed ₹10,100 crore this financial year.

The state is known for its impressive performance in human development indicators. But due to poor financial management, the condition of the energy sector remains poor. As a result, the power sector has become dependent on grants and subsidies for generation and transmission projects.

According to the energy department’s demand for 2025-26 tabled in the Assembly, tariff subsidies and grants had crossed the ₹30,000 crore mark for 2024-25 and now stand at ₹31,849 crore. Subsidies and grants have tripled to ₹10,834 crore for 2016–17.

revenue determination

Navneeraj Sharma, an independent consultant, says Tamil Nadu has the potential to become an “electro-state” by combining real industrial depth with some of the strongest renewable energy endowments in the country. But its power sector is in urgent need of revenue generation.

Mr Sharma says the problem for TNPDCL is not in providing free power, but in poor demand forecasting, power purchase planning and designing tariffs. Errors in load forecasting force discoms to buy short-term power at higher prices, leading to operating losses and increased dependence on government funding. He says much of the domestic tariff structure benefits middle-class and upper-middle-class families, not those who actually need support. This makes it difficult to justify the fiscal burden. He says as Tamil Nadu’s renewable energy share grows, accurate consumer-level data – especially for agriculture – will be essential for reliable long-term planning.

Power managers say that when the government allows big industries to set up captive power units, the grid condition worsens. Large industrial units avoid paying high industrial tariffs by setting up their own captive units, thereby forcing smaller units to pay higher tariffs. Daytime pricing that rewards load-shifting in the solar-rich afternoon will give the industry a reason to stay on the grid rather than leave it.

(M. Soundarya Preetha in Coimbatore, SP Saravanan in Erode, Rohan Premkumar in Udhagamandalam, M. Sabari in Namakkal, C. Jayasankar in Tiruchi, P. Sudhakar in Tirunelveli, and B. in Kanniyakumari. With inputs from Shankari Nivethitha.)

When 42-year-old Manish Kumar moved from Kalyan to an apartment in Parivar Society, Kanjurmarg East, he achieved both upward mobility and a Mumbai dream — living close to his office.

However, the past two years have been marked by sleepless nights and repeated visits to the hospital for his five-year-old daughter, who is battling persistent coughs. His residence, barely 700 meters from the landfill, is constantly engulfed in foul odour that intensifies during the night and early hours.

“We shut the windows in the house, but those in the washroom have to be kept open. The stench there is unbearable in the morning,” said Kumar, who is battling infections and shortness of breath.

Doctors have linked both his and his daughter’s illnesses to emissions from the landfill.

The landfill, the bane of residents such as Kumar, is Mumbai’s largest — spread across 141.77 hectares, of which 118.41 hectares are operational. Built on what was once a salt pan, the facility processes nearly 6,200 tonnes of waste every day and sits amid densely populated neighbourhoods – both slums and upscale residential towers.

The Kanjurmarg landfill drew global attention in April this year after it was ranked among the world’s top 25 methane-emitting dumpsites in a study by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Based on satellite observations in 2025, the study ranked Kanjurmarg 12th globally, estimating methane emissions at 4.9 tonnes per hour.

The report noted that while many landfills worldwide emit only a few dozen kilograms of methane per hour, sites on its “top 25” list released between 3.6 and 7.5 tonnes every hour. The highest emitter identified in the study was Campo de Mayo landfill in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with emissions of 7.6 tonnes per hour.

Apart from Kanjurmarg, another functional landfill under the jurisdiction of BMC is Deonar, with the Mulund dumping being officially shut in 2018 and undergoing biomining and reclamation work.

The Deonar dumping ground, established in 1927, is India’s oldest and among the largest landfill sites. The Kanjurmarg landfill currently handles a substantial portion of Mumbai’s daily waste, especially after the closure of the Mulund site. The Deonar dumping ground handles around 600 tons of fresh garbage daily. The landfill holds nearly 18.5 million tonnes of legacy waste.

Residents of Mumbai’s eastern suburbs have been raising concerns over odour from the Kanjurmarg landfill since 2016, when they first approached HC seeking relief. Nearly a decade later, even as authorities claim to have identified the causes of the emissions, residents continue to wait for a permanent solution.

But families such as Kumar’s who are considering relocating are stuck as they have poured their life’s savings into their houses.

Sandeep Kumar, 51, a Vikhroli resident who lives on one of the higher floors of a tower is equally a victim of the foul odour. “We can smell it even from the 23rd floor,” he said. “When we open the windows for fresh air, all we get is this stench, which worsens during the monsoons.”

Jayshree Khillari, 65, a resident of Society No. 5 in Kannamwar Nagar, said residents are perpetually told to use room fresheners to mask the odour. “But how long can people keep hiding the stink? The problem needs to be addressed,” she said.

Medical practitioners living close to the landfill have seen a spike in respiratory disorders among their patients. Vikhroli based Dr Yogesh Bhalerao, working president of the Integrated Doctors Association, has seen a spike in cases of asthma, bronchitis, persistent respiratory problems, complaints of nausea and irritation in the throat, among residents from nearby areas. “Prolonged exposure to foul odour, methane and pollutants can become a serious public health risk,” he said. “A proper health survey must be conducted to study the prevalence of respiratory illnesses and other health impacts from living near the dump yard,” he said.

Dr Harish Panchal’s clinic in Vikhroli is a 10-minute drive from the yard. Children and the elderly in the area, he said, are more vulnerable to respiratory problems and skin allergies. “The situation has aggravated in the last four to five years – all due to the stench emanating from the landfill,” he said.

Protests and litigations

Complaints of foul odour began in 2012, soon after the dumping facility became operational. Having lived in the area his entire life, Sanjay Yelve, 52, a petitioner before the HC, said “This smell is something else altogether.”

As the odour intensified, residents turned to politicians, police and local authorities, but got little relief. Sporadic protests were held by citizens groups and political parties, including a demonstration by then Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) MLA Mangesh Sangle in October 2012 along with his supporters who had shaved their heads in protest.

More recently, when the UCLA findings were discussed before the court, the BMC maintained that the report was reviewed with its monitoring committee but experts resisted technical comment or its validation as the reference datasets or the method of the study were not available to them. However, the monitoring committee has directed that NEERI be engaged to carry out a detailed methane audit and suggest stench mitigation measures.

In a series of hearings the HC had strongly questioned the civic body over the pertinacious odour emanating from the landfill. On April 25, a day after pulling up the BMC on the issue, Justices G S Kulkarni and Aarti Sathe visited the site to assess the situation, following which the court said that the “basic grievance” of the petitioners living in the neighbourhood was the unbearable stench in the early morning hours and sought a report explaining the “scientific reasons” behind the emissions.

In response, the BMC submitted an affidavit by Avinash Kate, chief engineer (solid waste management), stating that manpower had been deployed at the facility between 1 am and 6 am to monitor waste intake and operations.

On May 7, the civic body stated what it believed were the likely causes of the odour. It told the court that waste segregation at the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) takes place at night, and that a possible malfunction in four misting cannons — meant to suppress odour — may have allowed the stench to spread. It also pointed to windrow formation at the composting plant, a process in which biodegradable waste is piled into long rows.

According to the civic body, the MRF facility located barely 120 metres from residential areas in Kannamwar Nagar is likely the primary source of the smell because fresh waste is received and stored in the open while dry and wet waste are segregated. The BMC said the plant operator, Anthony Lara Enviro Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (ALESPL), had been instructed to spray deodorants on fresh waste. It also informed the court that the MRF facility would eventually be shifted farther away from residential areas, while the land near Kannamwar Nagar would be converted into a dense forest buffer zone.

The court had observed that the grievance of the residents near the dumping facility had “still not been satisfactorily resolved” and “further concrete steps” were required to control the emissions and odour generated at the dumping facility.

The court also pulled up the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), calling the body a “silent spectator to the entire problem” that had neither monitored pollution nor the odour around the facility. The MPCB’s counsel, however, told the court that it had been carrying out regular checks of the AQI levels in and around the facility.

For now, there are two petitioners before the court. The Kannamwar Co-operative Housing Society Association that first filed a PIL in 2016 and later a writ petition in 2018; and the other by the NGO Vanashakti in 2019. Both petitioners had questioned that environmental clearances be given to the mixed waste dumping project in Kanjurmarg before BMC started it in 2011. “The foul smell was an immediate concern but we ultimately want the dumping ground shut down and shifted elsewhere,” said Abhijeet Rane, the lawyer representing Kannamwar Nagar residents.

The PIL filed by Vanashakti stated that the 141.77 hectare Kanjurmarg plot was first identified as a potential dumping ground after the MPCB had ordered the closure of the Chincholi Bunder landfill site in Malad in 2001. In 2003, the Supreme Court (SC) had directed that only half of the Kanjurmarg plot be used as a dumping ground and the remaining be kept as a no-development zone. While passing this order, SC also underlined strict observation of pollution-related laws. An expert appraisal committee of the union ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEF) passed an environmental clearance in 2009 for the use of only 65.96 hectares as a dumping ground, the PIL stated. The plant began operations in 2011.

However, way before the stench overwhelmed the lives of residents of the area, Vanashakti ’s director Stalin Dayanand had flagged the matter before the National Environment Appellate Authority that recorded his submissions in its order of 2010. He had said that residents of villages in Kanjurmarg and Bhandup would suffer “on account of bad odour and traffic problem due to thousands of garbage trucks moving in the vicinity”.

“In 2009, when the first kilogram of waste was dumped in Kanjurmarg, I was already in court challenging it. It’s been 17 years but I haven’t been able to do anything about it,” said a dejected Dayanand.

On Tuesday, BMC Commissioner Ashiwini Bhide also paid a surprise visit to the dumping site in Kanjurmarg after which she directed civic officials to create a green buffer zone around the site and set up a dedicated night-time control room, among other measures.

Stink management

Srinivasan Chari, 58, deputy general manager (operations) of the Kanjurmarg dumping ground, denied that there was any “bad odour” emanating from the plant. He said that a proposal made by ALESPL to BMC to quell it by switching to waste-to-energy and compressed bio gas (CBG) plant, from the existing MRF and bio reactor landfill (BLF), was still pending. “The residual odour could also be brought down if we switch to the proposed system,” he said.

A senior official of the BMC’s solid waste management (SWM) department shared that the civic body was still mulling over the proposal, adding that ALESPL that was contractually bound to the civic body till 2036 has sought a 20-year extension of the contract. “Such an important decision could not be taken without elected representatives and the approval of the general body and the standing committee. Now that the elected representatives are appointed, it could move forward,” the official said.

Responding to concerns over methane generation flagged by a UCLA report, Chari said methane was “harmless to breathe” and “odourless”. He said, “We have invited them for discussions. We need to understand their findings and adopt mitigation measures adopted by them.”

Civic officials also claimed that over 80% of complaints about foul odour from citizens were “not genuine”. The remaining 20% of the complaints, they said, were due to other local issues and not the dumping facility. “When officials reach the spot and ask residents about the smell, they often say it was there five minutes ago but gone now,” said an official, adding that the occasional odour is unavoidable during the unloading of waste, particularly due to the wind.

“No matter how meticulously the trucks are unloaded, some amount of odour is inevitable, as the waste brought to the facility is already rotting. Typically, waste is dumped in bins around 11 am which is cleared only the next day when it is taken to the refuse transfer station where it sits to rot for another day or two, following which it is brought here,” the official said.

He added that to minimise the odour, bio-enzymes are sprayed soon after unloading. However, excessive use of chemicals or masking agents affect the natural generation of landfill gases processed for alternative fuel and fertilisers, he said.

Ganesh Khankar, leader of the house in BMC said, “The Kanjurmarg matter could not be discussed in detail earlier as the budget session was on. We will look into it now.” Sanjay Ghadi, deputy mayor, said: “Technological improvements should be implemented at the facility – it is not difficult. The administration must think about the issue seriously and resolve it.”

Kiran Dighavkar, deputy municipal commissioner, SWM, said, “The issue is significant and is being addressed under the guidance and directions of the high-level committee constituted by HC. We are working in compliance with the committee’s recommendations and working with best possible options.”

No quick-fix?

The landfill may not be the absolute villain, maintain environmental scientists, emphasising that foul odour can be contained with additional measures. A scientist, requesting anonymity, put emphasis on waste segregation and minimisation, adding, “Meteorological conditions, temperature and the wind are important parameters in determining the severity of the odour.”

Dr Rakesh Kumar, president of the Society for Indoor Environment, a non-profit organisation, said foul odour and methane generation are distinct problems that need to be dealt with separately. “Methane is generated when waste goes through anaerobic (absence of oxygen) activity. Methane generating bacteria become more active without the air. The absence of oxygen also generates hydrogen sulphide and other odorous compounds – they are linked but I wouldn’t say there is a 100% correlation. But to say one must control methane generation to reduce odour would be a complicated way of looking at the problem. You have to deal with the two separately,” said Kumar, who holds a PhD in environmental engineering, and has studied 40 landfills across India.

He said that the existence of a landfill does not automatically translate to a swirl of foul odour around it. “It does not happen in many other countries. You can smell it only when you go close to the landfill, like 10 meters, but not beyond. That is the purpose of technology,” he said.

To tackle the odour, he said, some measures must be taken before the waste reaches the landfill. “The odour is the strongest in the initial period of rotting. One needs to take care of it at the collection stage itself,” he said. Part of the waste in Mumbai goes to transfer stations in small vehicles before reaching the landfill in a bigger vehicle. “At this stage, we need to spray bioculture so that it doesn’t stink or at least the stink is suppressed. When it reaches the landfill, this must be repeated. I think there is a gap between these two, which leads to the odour,” said Kumar.

About methane, an odourless greenhouse gas, Kumar said, “Methane should ideally be captured because it is a valuable energy resource.” He emphasised that while odour is a problem, methane is not. “The generation of methane is not limited to landfills, it is also produced in the sewage flowing in open drains,” he said. He added complaints about foul odour had been made in the past by residents near other dump sites such as Gorai, Deonar and Mulund too. “The odour issue is not new but it needs urgent attention due to its health impacts,” Kumar said.

Scientists said that planting trees near the landfill may mitigate the stench to a great degree but not by itself. While more efforts would be required, halting waste collection or treatment at Kanjurmarg is not an option for the city.