Bachaikaris of Bhalswa

The Bhalswa landfill is a location with a thriving migrant community employed as waste-pickers who primarily engage in door-to-door garbage collection, segregation and reselling of valuable scraps. To understand their living and working conditions with an added stressor of the pandemic and recent fire hazards, the Centre for New Economic Studies team visited the residential areas within the landfill over the month of September. The team interacted with the migrant communities from West Bengal residing in Tandoor Wali Gali and Rajiv Nagar and noted their struggles with documentation and identity.