Centre grants approval to Chandigarh’s ‘waste to energy’ project

The Central government has approved waste to energy project for Chandigarh. This information was given by Minister of State (MoS) for Housing and Urban Affairs Tokhan Sahu in a matter raised by Chandigarh Member of Parliament (MP) Manish Tewari. The MP raised the issue under rule 377 in Lok Sabha regarding need for a waste to energy plant and clearance of garbage dump mound at Dadumajra in Chandigarh.

In a reply, Sahu informed Tewari that as per the information received from UT of Chandigarh, 5.10 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of legacy waste at Dadumajra dumpsite had been remediated. Around 55,000 MT of unprocessed waste accumulated at the site was currently being remediated, he said. The Chandigarh Administration had assured setting up of adequate waste processing to avoid its recurrence, the MoS said.

Sahu further added that under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 (SBM-U 2.0), financial assistance was provided to all states/UTs to attain 100 per cent scientific processing of municipal solid waste through setting up waste processing facilities such as waste-to-compost (WIC) plants, waste-to-energy (WtE) plants, material recovery facility (MRF), construction and demolition (C&D) waste processing plants, bio-methanation plants and for remediation of legacy waste on the basis of action plan, duly approved by state level technical committee (SLTC).

Sahu said Chandigarh had submitted their project for remediation of 7.67 lakh MT of legacy waste with total cost of Rs 42.18 crore having Central share of Rs 28.50 crore, which was approved under the SBM-U 2.0.

While commenting on the reply, Tewari said going by the response of the Minister of State for Urban Development and Housing, his repeated interventions in Parliament to get the Dadumajra garbage dump eradicated and the site bio-remediated seems to be moving forward.

“The Central government has approved a waste to energy project and also approved its Central share. The Government of India has underscored the responsibility of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation and the Chandigarh Administration in ensuring that the dumping site is cleared,” he said.

“The laxity of the corporation and the Administration is glaring as they have repeatedly given contradictory deadlines for clearing the site to Parliament, courts and Parliamentary Standing Committees and not abided by their commitments and obligations,” Tewari added.

He said the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation should have gone beyond temporary measures and ensured complete clearance of the dumpsite. “The real solution lies in a mega integrated waste to energy plant for the four cities of Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula and New Chandigarh encompassing all the municipal bodies that fall within the geographical boundaries of these cities. This must be taken up by the Government of India as a Central project,” he said.

“Unfortunately the Central Government looks at these four cities in silos and not as an integrated region whether from the economic, connectivity, employment generation or even the waste management perspective. That is why these quadra cities are not achieving their full potential,” Tewari added.