In India's busy cities, trash heaps of over 62 million tons of waste each year gather in open dumps, slowly poisoning the groundwater. This report, based on 130 studies from 1999 to 2025, looks at how polluted liquid from unlined dump sites in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Patna leaks into underground water sources. This increases levels of heavy metals, nitrates, and pathogens past safety limits. For example, Bhalswa in Delhi has lead levels 50 times higher than what is allowed, and wells in Surat carry arsenic. We checked out how pollution spreads, regional changes across 16 cities, and similar situations in other countries like Nigeria and Brazil. Monsoon seasons and insufficient trash sorting (only 30% is sorted) make the issue worse. The human impact is clear: kids face brain-related risks, and disadvantaged groups suffer the most from polluted water. As for harm to the area, polluted groundwater hurts soils and causes algal blooms. Even with the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016, weak enforcement leaves cities like Bhopal at risk. We suggest solutions such as sanitary landfills, community-based sorting programs like Pune’s SWaCH, and recycling ideas from around the world, backed by charts and pictures. With stories of families who depend on polluted wells, this paper stresses how urgent it is to have sustainable trash practices. Clean water is a basic right, and India needs to take action to protect both its groundwater and its people.
Anthati Sreenivasulu (Tue,) studied this question.