Quick Take
- Swapneel Paul, a 2018-batch IAS officer, has been District Commissioner of Kamrup Metropolitan district in Assam since January 5, 2026.
- Tinsukia legacy waste came to 1,12,200 tonnes. Assam’s filing of September 16, 2024 to the National Green Tribunal marks all of it 100% remediated.
- Guwahati, inside his present district, held 15 lakh tonnes at Boragaon and stood at 48% remediated in the same filing.
Municipal boards in Assam’s Tinsukia district cleared 1,12,200 tonnes of dumped waste by 2024, under District Commissioner Swapneel Paul.
The same government filing puts Guwahati’s legacy waste at 15 lakh tonnes. That is more than 13 times what the Tinsukia boards cleared. Kamrup Metropolitan district, which contains Guwahati, has been run by Swapneel Paul since January 5, 2026.
Peoples Feed has read the filing. It is dated September 16, 2024. It was submitted in Original Application 606 of 2018 by Sachindra Das, Joint Secretary in the Assam Environment and Forest Department.
What the Tinsukia Legacy Waste Numbers Show
The Tinsukia legacy waste figure is the sum of four rows in a table of Assam’s municipal boards. Every one of those rows is marked “100% remediated”.
Tinsukia and Makum boards account for 50,000 tonnes between them. Doomdooma board accounts for 18,000 tonnes. Digboi board accounts for 19,200 tonnes and Margherita board for 25,000 tonnes.
Peoples Feed added the four rows on September 10, 2026. They come to 1,12,200 tonnes. That total has not been published anywhere else that Peoples Feed could find.
Assam had identified 33 lakh tonnes of legacy waste across the state. Of that, 10.09 lakh tonnes had been remediated by August 31, 2024. The Tinsukia boards are about 11% of everything Assam had cleared by that date.
The state had awarded work on another 8.3 lakh tonnes across 39 more urban local bodies under a North Eastern Region scheme.
Measured the other way, the work looks smaller. It is about 3.4% of the 33 lakh tonnes the state had identified. Both numbers come from the same page.
How the Tinsukia Work Was Paid For and Done
Oil India Limited paid for the clearance out of its corporate social responsibility budget. A contractor, M/s Call And Fix, did the excavation. Refuse-derived fuel recovered from the waste went to Dalmia Cement.
The method was bio-mining and bioremediation. Old waste is dug out, screened, and separated into soil, plastic and burnable fuel. Work started in 2023 and ran across five municipal boards.
India Today NE reported on March 22, 2024 that 1.53 lakh tonnes had been treated at Tingrai, Doomdooma, Digboi and Margherita.
In that report, Swapneel Paul said the treatment “has reclaimed over 80 Bighas of land near the district’s Urban Centres”. The same report put the land recovered at over 30 acres.
Tinsukia went on to win a national award for it. The Press Information Bureau said on February 22, 2025 that the round drew 1,588 nominations from 710 registered districts, 92% of the country’s total.
Sixteen awards were given. Five of them went to the Holistic Development of Districts category, which is the one Tinsukia won. Each winning district gets a trophy, a scroll and Rs 20 lakh to spend on a project.
Credit for the clearance does not sit with one officer. Five municipal boards, a public sector company and a contractor did the work. The Press Information Bureau’s own scheme document says the money goes “to the awarded District/organization”.
The Record, Verified
Every entry below comes from a document or a dated report that Peoples Feed opened on September 10, 2026.
| Date | What happened | Source document |
|---|---|---|
| March 22, 2024 | Tinsukia announced as the first district in the North East to clear its legacy waste, with 1.53 lakh tonnes treated | India Today NE report carrying the district administration’s figures |
| September 16, 2024 | Four Tinsukia-area municipal boards recorded as 100% remediated, 1,12,200 tonnes in total | Government of Assam progress report in Original Application 606 of 2018, National Green Tribunal |
| February 22, 2025 | Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2024 set at 16 awards, five of them for Holistic Development of Districts | Press Information Bureau release, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions |
| April 21, 2025 | Tinsukia district receives the award at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi | The Sentinel, April 22, 2025 |
| December 24, 2025 | Assam Personnel Department moves Swapneel Paul from Tinsukia to Kamrup Metropolitan | Assam Tribune report on the Personnel Department order |
| January 5, 2026 | Swapneel Paul takes charge as District Commissioner, Kamrup Metropolitan | India Today NE, January 5, 2026 |
| May 1 to October 31, 2026 | Earth cutting and earth filling banned in Guwahati’s hills, low-lying areas and water body zones under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 | Order of the District Commissioner and Chairman, District Disaster Management Authority, Kamrup Metropolitan |
What Is Contested or Unproven
Two different totals for the same job sit in the public record. The Assam government told the tribunal 1,12,200 tonnes. The district administration announced 1.53 lakh tonnes in March 2024.
The site lists differ too. Assam’s tribunal table names Tinsukia, Makum, Doomdooma, Digboi and Margherita boards. The March 2024 account names Tingrai, Doomdooma, Digboi and Margherita.
Three figures exist for the land recovered. The figure from Swapneel Paul was 80 bighas. The same March 2024 report said over 30 acres, and reports in April 2025 said 50 acres.
Peoples Feed could not reconcile these from published documents. This article uses the tribunal filing, because it is the primary record. Whether the Tinsukia sites have stayed clear since 2024 is not established by any document Peoples Feed could open.
Peoples Feed searched for criticism of this work on September 10, 2026. The search covered National Green Tribunal filings, Press Information Bureau releases, the Kamrup Metropolitan and Tinsukia district websites and Assam news reporting.
It found no published criticism, pending inquiry or disputed claim against Swapneel Paul in connection with the clearance.
What Happens Next in Kamrup Metropolitan
Guwahati is the hard case. The same Assam filing records 15 lakh tonnes of legacy waste at the city’s Boragaon site, of which 7,34,000 tonnes had been remediated. That is 48%.
Assam told the tribunal the Guwahati work was “expected to be completed by July, 2026”. That month has passed. Peoples Feed found no published statement confirming the target was met.
The daily problem has not changed much either. Guwahati generates about 550 tonnes of solid waste a day, the Guwahati Development Department says. Processing capacity stood at 15 tonnes a day on March 19, 2024, the tribunal filing records.
Two dated orders have gone out in Guwahati this year under Swapneel Paul. Earth cutting and filling are banned from May 1 to October 31, 2026.
A second order, dated July 5, 2026, told traffic police, transport, public works and health officials to inspect Guwahati’s new flyovers regularly.
What this means for you: If you live in Guwahati or work in a municipal board in Assam, Boragaon is the number to watch, not the award. Assam’s next filing in Original Application 606 of 2018 will show whether the 15 lakh tonnes are gone.
Peoples Feed Insight
The Tinsukia clearance is usually described as a large job. Set against Assam’s own tribunal filing it was a small one, finished completely, which is a different and more useful thing. Small towns with one dump and one funder can finish. Guwahati has neither. The test of whether the method travels is Boragaon. Assam’s last filing left 7.66 lakh tonnes there, against a July 2026 deadline that has come and gone in silence. Watch for the next Assam filing in Original Application 606 of 2018. If Boragaon is still short, the Tinsukia method did not scale. The award will then have measured the size of the problem rather than the skill of the fix.
By Soumya Verma, Senior Correspondent
About Swapneel Paul
Swapneel Paul is a 2018-batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service. He is District Commissioner of Kamrup Metropolitan district in Assam, which includes Guwahati, and took charge on January 5, 2026. In Tinsukia he oversaw the clearance of 1,12,200 tonnes of legacy waste. Assam’s September 2024 filing to the National Green Tribunal records all of it as remediated.
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