A Nestlé India & PLAN Foundation Initiative
Enabling Collective Action for Tourist Cities of India
Hilldaari
7 Years of Reimagining How Tourist Cities Handle Their Waste
India's most beloved hill towns and coastal cities are under pressure. With over 3 billion domestic tourist visits recorded in the first eight months of 2025 alone, popular destinations generate waste at a scale that local systems were never built to handle, much of it ending up in hillslide, forests, and open dumps.
Hilldaari is a pan-India initiative building sustainable Solid Waste Management systems for tourist cities and eco sensitive regions by uniting municipal councils, sanitation workers, citizens, and local influencers, we create waste solutions that are contextualised, inclusive, and built to last.
​Since 2018, we’ve grown from a single pilot in Mussoorie to an active programme implemented across 10 cities, expanding both reach and on-ground impact.
Our Impact So Far
​Since 2018, the programme has scaled significantly across multiple cities, delivering measurable impact across waste diversion, workforce professionalisation, and citizen engagement. This growth is reflected not only in the scale of operations but also in the depth of community participation and sustained behaviour change.
Community Voices
"We are working with Hildaari as a team towards making our Mahabaleshwar clean. Hilldaari has provided us with shoes, uniform, gloves, masks, mobile and ID card. Now, households have also started segregating waste. The initiative has reduced our tasks and risks significantly."
Mangal Ashok Kale,
Waste Management Professional, Mahabaleshwar
"In Mussoorie, waste management is no longer seen as sole responsibility of the ULB. Hilldaari has brought a transformative change in the outlook of citizens, tourists, local bodies and waste workers. Today, the city stands as a testament to the power of collective change in making Mussoorie neat and clean!"
Shri Anuj Gupta,
Ex-chairperson,
Mussoorie Nagar Parishad
Designed for Local Relevance
​Instead of a one-size-fits-all initiative, Hilldaari adapts its model to each city's unique geography, governance, and culture, making it replicable yet locally relevant across diverse destinations.
A Unique Approach to Impact
A Collective Approach to Waste Management
Hilldaari brings together every actor in the waste ecosystem, from municipal councils and sanitation workers to citizens and influencers, ensuring solutions are collective and community-owned rather than top-down.
Empowering India's Waste Workforce
For years, waste work in India has existed in the margins. Informal, unrecognised, and with no structured path forward.
Hilldaari is changing that. Through 218 training sessions, over 1,300 workers have been upskilled in solid waste management. What was once survival work is quietly becoming a profession.
