After facing flak for undue delays, the BMC has now set a target to commission a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant by October 2025. While the city generates 6,300 metric tonnes (MT) of waste per day, the plant will have the capacity to process only 600MT to get 4MW of power.
Delays in the project have also delayed the scientific closure of Deonar dumping ground, which overflows with more than 12 million tonnes of waste.
Dumping grounds in Mulund and Deonar were ordered shut in 2016 after the Bombay High Court (HC) observed that they had reached saturation point. After a major fire in 2015 at a dumping ground, the central government and the HC ordered the BMC to come up with a scientific plan for waste disposal. The oldest landfill in Mumbai has mountains of garbage reaching 18 floors high. So the BMC shifted to WTE to deal with the increasing solid waste in 2016. However, it took years for the BMC to obtain environmental clearances from the central government for the project.
Moreover, the BMC’s plan also had a setback when they failed to get bidders to process 3,000 MT per day of waste at Deonar. It took nearly six years to begin the construction of the WTE plant in June 2022. A contract has been awarded to Chennai MSW Pvt Ltd at a cost of Rs648 crore with a design and build period of 40 months and an operation and maintenance period of 15 years.
Meanwhile, the civic authorities were slammed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for poor monitoring and abnormal delays in obtaining mandatory clearances for setting up plants, in its special audit report last year.
“We invited a global tender to get an experienced firm to set up a WTE plant with a capacity of 3,000MT. Later, we had to downsize the project to get a response from private parties, who claimed the project is not viable. Currently, 600MT of waste is dumped in the Deonar landfill, which is enough for the WTE plant,” said a civic official.
Sudhir Parkale, chief engineer (projects) of solid waste management was unavailable for comments.
