NEW DELHI: The Centre on Saturday rolled out a programme on mission mode for fast-track elimination of all waste at 214 major legacy landfills across the country by October 2026. These high-load locations account for around 8.8 crore tonnes or nearly 80% of India’s remaining legacy waste that is spread over 202 municipal areas, including Delhi, Chennai, Greater Jaipur, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Aligarh, Kolkta, Karimnagar, Kottayam and Margao.Launching the Dumpsite Remediation Accelerator Programme (DRAP) at government’s National Urban Conclave, housing and urban affairs minister Manohar Lal Khattar urged elected representatives and social leaders to “adopt” landfills in their areas and also tap corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, private entities and state agencies to meet the target of getting rid of legacy dumpsites in a year.Khattar has adopted Bhalswa landfill, one of the three major legacy waste dumpsites in Delhi. He told reporters that in the past two-and-a-half months, around 4.8 lakh tonne of waste has been neutralised at the site and in the next one year another 40 lakh tonne will be cleared, which will unlock nearly 70 acres of urban land.

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Officials said that under the programme, larger landfills across the country will receive priority attention. This will run on the 5P framework of political leadership, public finance, public advocacy, project management and partnerships. Cities will need to prepare micro-action plans for every dumpsite and will need to take measures to prevent fresh dumping during post-remediation and the plan to utilise the remediated land. The progress will be monitored in real time through the DRAP portal. The ministry will provide financial and technical assistance to the municipal bodies.Alongside DRAP, the ministry also rolled out the Urban Investment Window (UWIN), a one-stop platform to attract private capital and long-term concessional funding from multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank for municipal bodies. Anchored by the ministry’s PSU, HUDCO, this platform will also promote Public-Private-Partnership-based urban projects to accelerate sustainable infrastructure development.Housing and urban affairs secretary Srinivas Katikithala said the conclave reflects a “collective urban effort” to make Indian cities more affordable, secure and sustainable. He added that a new “Team Urban” is taking shape, which PM Narendra Modi had once suggested at a meeting, to steer the urbanisation in the country.