No tipping fee for Jaypee
Ramkrishan Upadhyay
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 8
In a major jolt to the Jaypee garbage processing plant management, its claim for tipping fee in lieu of garbage taken from the Municipal Corporation (MC) has been rejected.
Acting as the arbitrator, Home Secretary Arun Kumar Gupta also ordered M/s Jaiprakash Associates Limited to return tipping fee of around Rs 2 crore paid to it by the civic body within 15 days, failing which the MC will be entitled to interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum till the realisation of the refund.
The tipping fee was paid on a direction of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), subject to the decision of the arbitration proceedings.
In its order dated July 24, 2017, the NGT had directed the MC to pay tipping fee at the rate of Rs 500 per tonne. Besides, the plant management was given an option to go for arbitration proceeding as per Clause 11 of the agreement between M/s Jaiprakash Associates Limited and the MC inked on December 30, 2005.
The NGT had directed the Jaypee plant to accept the entire municipal solid waste or pay Rs 50,000 as environmental compensation daily.
The dispute between the parties over tipping fee and non-processing of solid waste had reached the NGT in view of environmental hazards these issues started posing. The General House of the MC had cancelled the contract of the plant in 2016 after it had failed to process the entire solid waste generated in the city.
Going by the arbitration clause, the Jaypee plant filed a claim petition with the Arbitrator-cum-Secretary, Local Government, UT.
After hearing both the parties, the Home Secretary recently ordered that it was not binding on the MC to pay tipping fee. The order said the issue of tipping fee submitted by the plant was considered as per Clause 12.20 of the Implementation Agreement which said “MC may consider”. The MC had already rejected the tipping fee claim of the firm. Thus, its management cannot claim tipping fee as a matter of right.
