Chandigarh, June 6 -- Even as the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) had assured the Punjab and Haryana high court of clearing out the Dadumajra dump completely by May 31 this year, 1 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of legacy waste still remains at the landfill, which it now aims to remove by July. After missing repeated deadlines, MC had completed the bio-remediation of two mountains of legacy waste at Dadumajra landfill in February this year, and had started the work to process the remaining freshly dumped waste, holding a massive 1.25 LMT of waste. Amid Chandigarh's turbulent waste management journey, two legacy waste mountains of 5 LMT and 8 LMT came up in Dadumajra over the past few decades due to inadequate garbage processing facilities. The first dump, with 5 LMT waste, was processed by December 2022. However, when the bio-remediation of the second mountain was being done, another mountain of waste emerged at the landfill as a result of the unabated dumping of unsegregated and unprocessed daily waste. MC had earlier set the deadline for completing the bio-remediation of the 8 LMT mountain by July 2023. But it was extended five times: First to December 2023, then to March 2024, June, October and then finally to December 2024. Even the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, had on December 16, 2024, said in the Parliament, that the work of bio-remediation of the entire legacy waste at Dadumajra landfill will be completed by December 2024. But the target was achieved only in February 2025, with MC still staring at the third mountain of 1.25 LMT waste. On May 7, MC's counsel submitted in the high court that the entire waste will be cleared by May 31. However, the deadlines keep shifting at various levels. In a reply to Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari's questions in the Parliament, the Union minister of state for housing and urban affairs Tokan Sahu had mentioned July 31, 2025, as the deadline. In the General House meeting of MC on March 25, MC officials had clarified, "The National Green Tribunal is pursuing with Chandigarh administration/MC for clearing the dumping ground of legacy waste at the earliest. The Punjab and Haryana high court also mandated that the third dump be cleared in a time-bound manner. Members of Parliament have also taken cognisance of the matter and advised for clearing the dump without any delay. MC has also reiterated to the chairman and members of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs, 2025, that the work of clearing the third dump will be completed by July 2025, subject to weather conditions." When contacted for a clear picture, municipal commissioner Amit Kumar said, "At present, around 1 LMT of waste is left for bio-remediation. We have enhanced the daily processing capacity to 6,000 MT waste and have sped up the work. Thus, we are hopeful of meeting the set deadline of July 31."...