Kanwar Yatra leaves 7,000 tonnes of waste in Haridwar; urine-filled bottles found at Har Ki Pauri

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 02:46:00 +0000

Workers clean up accumulated waste after the conclusion of the annual ‘Kanwar Yatra’, near ghat at Har Ki Pauri, in Haridwar, Uttarakhand on Thursday (August 13, 2026).
| Photo Credit: PTI

Haridwar administration has taken up a major clean-up drive to clear about 7,000 metric tonnes of waste left behind by kanwariyas across the city and in the Ganga ghats. Discarded clothes, slippers, plastic items and bottles reportedly filled with urine were found inside women’s changing rooms set up by the civic body at Har Ki Pauri, a sacred ghat for Hindus.

About 50 million pilgrims had undertaken the 12-day Kanwar Yatra.

Municipal Commissioner Nandan Kumar told The Hindu that around 1,700 metric tonnes of waste had accumulated across the city in the last two days of the yatra.

“The city generates around 200-250 metric tonnes of garbage in a day. This additional 7,000 metric tonnes is extra work for us to segregate and decompose. For this, we have launched a special clean-up drive from August 12 to 18, deploying around 1,000 additional sanitation workers and more than 80 vehicles. Cleaning teams are working round the clock, with the ghats being given priority,” he said.

On the finding of urine-filled bottles inside women’s changing rooms, Mr. Kumar said the act was likely carried out by anti-social elements, as the civic body had set up both permanent and temporary toilets across the city, along the Kanwar route and in the ghats.

“This was a shocker for us as the changing rooms are meant only for women. We are trying to analyse CCTV footage around the ghats to identify who did this and are also considering what action can be taken to prevent such acts in future,” he added.

Nitin Gautam, president of Shri Ganga Sabha, an organisation that manages religious activities in various ghats in Haridwar, also expressed concern over the accumulation of waste in the Ganga ghats during the Kanwar Yatra.

Mr. Gautam said the organisation planned to launch an awareness campaign next year to discourage pilgrims from leaving waste and bottles in the ghats.

“From next year, we plan to launch an awareness campaign to discourage pilgrims from leaving waste and bottles in the ghats. We will ask the kanwariyas to ensure that no anti-social elements join their groups, as such acts as leaving human excreta and urine in the Ganga ghats hurt the religious sentiments of devotees,” he said.

Har Ki Pauri is regarded as the place where the Ganga emerges from the mountains and enters the plains and is considered one of Haridwar’s most important religious sites.

Published – August 13, 2026 08:01 pm IST

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3 Dead, 6 Injured As House Collapses Due To Heavy Rain In Uttarakhand

admin — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 17:43:33 +0000

Dehradun:

Three people were killed and at least six injured after a house collapsed in Haridwar district as heavy rain wreaked havoc in various parts of Uttarakhand on Wednesday evening.

A family is reported to have gone missing following a cloudburst in a village in Ghansali area of Tehri district, officials said.

A house collapsed due to heavy rain in Bharpur village near Roorkee in Haridwar district, killing three people and injuring more than half a dozen others after they got buried under the debris, police said.

The injured have been admitted to a hospital.

The sound of the house collapse was so loud that the villagers got frightened, police said.

Torrential rain for a few hours in Haridwar inundated the entire city washing away a truck of Kanwariyas in Sukhi river in Kharkhari area.

There were no Kanwariyas in the truck, but it had rations and essential goods for their return journey, police said.

The Kanwariyas alleged when they parked the truck there, no one alerted them about the area suddenly getting flooded when it rains heavily.

Kharkhari police post in-charge Sanjeet Kandhari said that the truck was seen floating in water. He said the vehicle will be retrieved when the rain stops.

About a dozen four-wheelers standing in the same dry riverbed were washed away due to sudden flooding after heavy rain on June 25 also.

Roads got submerged in water in many areas of the city and the rainwater also entered the Kankhal police station.

Many colonies and markets of Bhupatwala, Haridwar, Naya Haridwar, Kankhal, and Jwalapur got flooded.

Heavy waterlogging also occurred on the roads at Ranipur turning, the posh commercial area of Haridwar, while water gushed into many big showrooms. Latowali in Kankhal was flooded up to four feet.

With the roads getting marooned, the administration changed the route of the Kanwariyas at many places.

It rained heavily for several hours in Dehradun also.

A house collapsed due to heavy rain in Talla village of Pithoragarh district. Three more houses in the village were also damaged. However, there was no loss of human life in the two incidents.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Kanwar Yatra leaves 7,000 tonnes of waste in Haridwar; urine-filled bottles found at Har Ki Pauri

3 Dead, 6 Injured As House Collapses Due To Heavy Rain In Uttarakhand