The 15th municipal meeting of Bharatpur Metropolitan City recently endorsed its policy and programme that aims to make the metropolis clean, green, safe and prosperous. Just after a week of the municipal meeting, the streets of Bharatpur are littered with heaps of garbage, posing health risks during the monsoon.

Waste management has become a major problem in Bharatpur, especially for people living near the banks of the Narayani river, as the riverside serves as the only landfill site for the city of around 370,000 people. And the problem worsens every monsoon as the metropolis disposes of its waste on the banks of the river, which is just 400 metres from Nagarban settlement, making life difficult for all local residents.

According to the data of the environment section of Bharatpur Metropolitan City Office, around 70 to 80 tonnes of garbage are being collected in the metropolis daily. Garbage, both renewable and non-renewable, is being deposited on the banks of the Narayani river as the metropolis does not have a well-managed landfill site.

The metropolitan city, somehow, manages the solid waste during the dry season. But both the rain-swollen river and locals obstruct the municipal authority in managing garbage during the monsoon season. The garbage trucks cannot reach the designated place as the river banks get flooded in the rainy season. As a result, the sanitation workers are compelled to dump the garbage near human settlements that trigger stringent protests from the locals.

“It has been more than 20 years since the metropolis dumped garbage on the riverbank in our ward,” said Bikash Thapa, chairman of ward 3 of Bharatpur metropolis. “During the dry season, the metropolis dumps the garbage a little further from the settlement, but during the monsoon, it dumps and buries the garbage near the settlement. There is no more space left in the area for dumping and burying garbage.”

The locals of ward 3 have been obstructing the metropolis from dumping garbage on the riverbank. Garbage has been piled up in the streets since Thursday due to the protest of the local people.

Bharatpur metropolis is now looking for an alternative place to dump the garbage after the locals’ disruption in ward 3. “Search is on to find a suitable place in ward 1 to manage the garbage,” said Suraj Paudel, chief at the sanitation management unit of Bharatpur Metropolitan City. According to him, the metropolis and two private companies have been collecting and managing the solid waste currently.

The metropolis has been dumping its garbage on the banks of Narayani river for the past 15 years after the then Hetauda Appellate Court issued an order banning the disposal of waste at Jaldevi Community Forest, stating its biological importance. Since then, Bharatpur has been dumping its waste on the Narayani riverbanks, which is just 200-300 metres away from the city area.

The federal government in the fiscal year 2011-12 had allotted 15 bigha of land in the Jaldevi Community Forest to the metropolitan city to build a well-managed landfill site. As compensation for the use of the forestland, the metropolis some five years ago had purchased another 15 bighas (10 hectares) of land in Madi to be used for reforestation. But the Division Forest Office in Bharatpur in 2023 refused to swap forest land with the land that the metropolis purchased in Madi as that land does not adjoin the national forest. As a result, the metropolitan city’s plan to construct a landfill site remains in limbo.

“We have been seriously working on garbage management,” said Mayor Renu Dahal in a press meet organised to conclude the municipal meeting last week. “We are yet to get results despite working sincerely for the construction of a well managed landfill site.” The metropolis allocates a Rs50 million budget to manage garbage for the upcoming fiscal year 2024-25.

Bharatpur, one of the country’s six metropolitan cities, is still struggling to find a location for the landfill site. In 2018, the metropolitan office signed an agreement with the Sudokwon Landfill Site Management Corporation of South Korea to come up with a master plan for a proper waste management system. The masterplan was to be prepared within 15 months from the date of the agreement.

“The agreement was signed for the proper waste management of the city. We thought that the Korean company would come with the master plan,” said Dahal, assuring that an alternative landfill site will be sought soon to initiate construction work. “But the company did not work citing the Covid-19 pandemic. The metropolis is now working itself for the sustainable management of solid waste.”