Neglected Delhi

Last weekend, I got a chance to visit a slum area in Delhi and teach some kids through an NGO called Pehchaan. As soon as I came out of the metro station, I was hit by a strong bad smell coming from an open black water ditch nearby i.e. nothing but Yamuna river. The heat was scorching, and I could imagine people even sleeping on the road close to that foul-smelling ditch.

As we walked further, I saw narrow dirty lanes filled with garbage everywhere. Men were walking around without shirts, women were washing clothes right beside the narrow paths, and the detergent foam was spilling onto the road. Kids were running and playing in these small lanes along with some goats. I also noticed things like broken CCTV cameras and a boy coloring his mother’s hair right there in the open. It was a tough sight.

We finally reached a small temple where I was supposed to teach a group of 7 to 8 children from 6th and 9th grades, all living in that slum. After some time, a group of 9th-grade students from a nearby private school came to perform a ‘Nukkad Natak’—a street play to teach children about cleanliness and hygiene. They did a really good job and kept the kids engaged.

I spoke to Lucky, a boy in 6th grade, and asked him why there was so much garbage in the area. He said very clearly, “Bhaiya, people here fight with their neighbors even on small things, so they throw garbage anywhere they want, even in front of others’ houses. The place is so crowded that we don’t have a specific place to keep the garbage. Even if the government tries to build one, people still throw garbage into the drains or ditches. Nobody thinks about cleanliness here.”

Lucky’s words opened my eyes to many problems. The slum is crowded, and people don’t work together to keep it clean. There are no proper bins or places to throw trash, and the drainage ditches are used as garbage dumps, making the whole area dirty and unhealthy.

Delhi’s government has three big landfill sites—Ghazipur, Okhla, and Bhalswa—where most of the city’s garbage goes. These landfills get extremely hot, sometimes reaching 75 degrees Celsius, and this causes big piles of burning garbage that create pollution and health problems for people nearby.

According to a recent Al Jazeera article, these garbage mountains have become a huge problem for waste pickers and those living close by. The heat, smoke, and dangerous conditions make their lives very hard.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi clears over 12,000 tonnes of garbage every day, but the problem is too big to fix quickly. Many slums don’t have good waste collection or proper cleaning services. Sometimes cameras and equipment placed to keep the area monitored are broken or bent, showing how little maintenance these places get.

Open drains with dirty water mixed with detergents from washing clothes create more pollution and health risks. The narrow lanes where children play, goats roam, and laundry is done make it even harder to manage waste properly.

The government runs awareness programs and cleanliness drives, and communities are encouraged to separate their waste. But without better infrastructure and people working together, real progress is slow. The ‘Nukkad Natak’ and NGOs teaching children about hygiene are important because children can bring change in their homes.

To solve this, Delhi needs more than cleaning drives. It needs proper bins and waste systems in slums, strict rules to stop dumping garbage anywhere, better community participation, and support for waste pickers who do a tough job. Most importantly, people living in slums need help and encouragement to keep their homes and streets clean.

Walking back that day, I thought—awareness without infrastructure and social solidarity is just noise. Lucky’s slum is a reminder: waste isn’t just rubbish. It’s a reflection of neglected communities desperately needing integrated, compassionate solutions for a cleaner Delhi.