SC orders probe into Adampur landfill fires, mandates health check

Recurring fires at Bhopal's Adampur garbage dump, including an April 2025 blaze affecting seven villages, have drawn Supreme Court scrutiny. Activist Dr. Subhash Pandey claims the Bhopal Municipal Corporation deliberately ignites these fires to manage excess waste, as the facility processes only 700 of the city's daily 850 tons of garbage. The Court has reprimanded the BMC for violating waste management regulations, ordered a Central Pollution Control Board investigation, and mandated health assessments for nearby residents. This case exposes critical failures in Bhopal's waste management despite earlier regulatory clearances.

Single member bench of Justice Abhay Oka heard the case on 16 May. Advocate Harshvardhan Pandey appeared for the petitioner, Dr. Subhash Pandey. 

What happened at Adampur

A major fire broke out at the Adampur garbage dump in Bhopal on 22 April this year. It burnt for several days and spread on a large scale. The fire reportedly affected seven nearby villages.

Similarly, in March 2023, a fire broke out at the Adampur garbage dump. It continued for two to three days. Bhopal-based environmental activist Dr. Subhash Pandey filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The NGT fined the Bhopal Municipal Corporation ₹1.8 crore. An appeal was later filed in the Supreme Court against this decision.

Pandey has alleged in his petition that the repeated fires at the Adampur garbage disposal facility are a deliberate act. The Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) carries out such incidents to get rid of old garbage heaps. He said that about 850 tonnes of garbage are generated every day in Bhopal city. However, the Adampur khanti can only dispose of 600 to700 tonnes of garbage. In this By the way, about 250 tonnes of garbage accumulate every day without being disposed of.

Media reports also point out the garbage disposal facility in Adampur runs for 7-8 hours every day and can dispose of 600-700 tonnes of garbage. However, the city of Bhopal produces 850 tonnes of garbage daily. In this way, 250 tonnes of garbage accumulate every day without being disposed of.

Moreover, when the Bhanpur landfill site was shut down in 2017 and a new site opened in Adampur in 2018, 1.5 lakh tonnes of waste were also shifted to Adampur. Pandey alleges that they set fire to the piles of unsegregated solid waste to get rid of the accumulated old waste. If that were not the case, there would not have been 12 fires at this site in the past 18 months.

Violation of guidelines

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has clear guidelines that in fire incidents where unsegregated solid waste is burning, construction and demolition material should be used to douse the fire instead of water. But the BMC uses water, which creates greenhouse gases. These gases add to air pollution and worsen the extraordinary heat being felt in the city this summer.

NEERI and other environmental regulatory bodies have conducted a survey of Adampur Khanti. All of the arrangements were found to be satisfactory during these investigations, with the exception of a few minor issues. However, a few days after this conclusion from NEERI, a fire broke out in Adampur Khanti. Bhopal's environmental activist Nitin Saxena raises questions on this survey of NEERI. He says that the groundwater of the villages around Khanti is contaminated on a large scale. Fires have broken out here many times. If there have been many fires, how can everything be considered fine? There is a clear lack of proper monitoring.

Dr. Subhash Pandey also disagrees with NEERI’s findings. He says the waste at Khanti is unsegregated, and frequent fires continue to break out. The groundwater in nearby villages, he claims, is heavily contaminated and contains high levels of certain metals known to cause cancer. He questions the actions of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, 

“If everything is fine, then why is the BMC supplying water to these villages through tankers?"

Saxena also questions the role of state government agencies. Saxena says that when the fire broke out in Khanti in the year 2023, he had raised this issue before the State Human Rights Commission, MPPCB, Municipal Corporation Bhopal, and District Administration Bhopal. After the incident in the year 2025, Saxena had also applied before the District Legal Authority regarding this matter.

The same concerns raised by the Supreme Court were brought up before the Human Rights Commission long ago. Saxena says.

“Yet, it took over two years for any real action. If we must go to the Supreme Court for everything, what do state agencies and the MPPCB do?"

He adds, “In these bodies, junior engineers from unrelated departments are handling environmental matters. In Bhopal, someone who doesn’t even understand what legacy waste is has been put in charge of managing it.”

Court slams BMC

The apex body has reprimanded the Bhopal Municipal Corporation for failing to implement solid waste management rules. The court has said that the fire that raged for 5 days at the corporation's Adampur dumping site was caused due to non-compliance of the 2016 rules.

The Court in its order said —

“There was a massive fire at the Corporation's dumping site where untreated solid waste was being dumped. Photographs are enclosed. It appears that the fire continued for 4 to 5 days. Reports indicate that this is the 9th fire incident at the same location. All this has happened due to the appellant's failure to comply with and implement the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016."

The court has allowed the Central Pollution Control Board to be included as a respondent. The court has also directed the CPCB to deploy senior officials at the site of the fire and find out its cause.

The court said that the CPCB officials will place on record the report stating that immediate measures need to be taken to avoid recurrence of such incidents. We give 6 weeks' time. If the fire is still burning, do everything possible to put it out and prevent it from happening again.

The court also told the District Level Service Authority secretary to use paralegal volunteers to see if the fire affected the health of residents near the dump.

"If it is found that the health has been affected, then the Legal Service Authority will coordinate with the government hospitals of the city and ensure that the residents are given proper treatment."

Nitin Saxena appreciates this Supreme Court decision. He said that he has raised the issue of the health of the villagers living near the pit many times before. Today the court has given directions on this issue as well.

Bhopal's waste management has often been under question. The repeated fires in Adampur Khanti and the air pollution caused by it point to the negligence in the management here. On the other hand, the Supreme Court's decision has brought the clean chit given to Khanti by the regulatory agencies under suspicion. Now the court has handed over the investigation of this case to the CPCB. The status of the case will be clearer after the investigation.

Edited by Diwash Gahatraj

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