Diesel shortage stalls bio-remediation at Mulund Dumpsite amid West Asia crisis
2 min readMumbaiApr 6, 2026 11:14 PM IST
The ongoing bio-remediation work in Mumbai’s Mulund dumpsite has been stalled for nearly a month amid the fuel supply crisis in the backdrop of the ongoing West Asia conflict.
The Mulund dumpsite has been operational since 1968 and during the time of its closure, it housed legacy waste up to 70 lakh MT, with the average height of waste mountains rising up to 30-meters in length.
According to the authorities, so far 65 lakh MT have been removed from the ground, while the remaining portion of waste continues to be there.
Civic officials maintained that the contractors have written to them stating that the shortage of diesel has affected the civic sources.
“The process of bio remediation requires mobilisation of heavy vehicles for carrying extracted solid waste. As a result, the scarcity of the diesel supply has slowed down the process and the contractors have demanded us an extension of timeline for completing the process. However, we haven’t granted any extension as of now and we intend to complete the process by end of this month,” an official said.
The process of clearing the waste from this land parcel began in 2018, after the court ordered that dumping of solid waste should be stopped in this land parcel.
The deadline for completing the work was postponed multiple times and the last deadline was in February this year, which was later postponed to April. The officials said that on a daily basis the BMC was processing an average of 10,000 MT of waste daily.
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The officials said that owing to the stoppage of supply, only 10-12 trucks have deployed into operation which bears a capacity of 20-25 MT only on a daily basis.
The BMC initiated the process of clearing the site at a cost of Rs 558.6 crore (Rs 798 per tonne of waste) and had set up a five year deadline to reclaim the site that expands up to 60 acres.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
