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









