Waste-to-energy plant project hangs fire

Nitish Sharma

The project to transform a defunct solid waste treatment plant into an integrated waste-to-energy plant at Patvi in Ambala district has been hanging fire.

The plant constructed at an initial cost of Rs 12 crore was to treat 70 metric tonnes of solid waste every day, besides generating 5 MW in an environment-friendly manner and producing organic fertiliser from it.

The Ambala Municipal Corporation had signed an operation and management agreement for the Patvi plant with a Delhi-based company in 2008. The plant was shut down shortly after it was inaugurated in 2008, as the Union Ministry of Environment did not give clearance to the project.

The quality of organic fertiliser produced from waste at the plant was not good. The plant was making losses and a series of objections and litigations cropped up between the company and the corporation. The corporation won the legal battle a couple of years ago but instead of reviving the plant, it decided to set up a waste-to-energy plant.

The plant is at present being used as a dumping ground and its machinery is badly damaged. The government had over a year ago given the go-ahead to the project to transform the defunct solid waste treatment plant into an integrated waste-to-energy plant. Tenders were floated thrice but the project failed to attract adequate bids. The estimated cost of the project was more than Rs 300 crore and multi-national companies were expected to compete for it, as only a few companies in the country have the expertise to generate energy from waste. Keeping this in mind, global tenders were floated thrice.

Under the project, waste from Cheeka in Kaithal district, and Pehowa, Shahabad, and Thanesar in Kurukshetra district will also be brought to the plant and the energy produced will be sent to power grids.

The Patvi plant is an important project, as it will help in managing over 300 tonnes of waste generated in Ambala district every day.

Satinder Siwatch, Joint Commissioner of the Ambala Municipal Corporation, says that, “Besides Ambala, waste from Cheeka in Kaithal, and Pehowa, Shahabad and Thanesar in Kurukshetra district will be brought here. There were some issues, which have been resolved. The matter is with the headquarters. The plant will be run on the public private partnership mode and a tender in this regard will be floated soon. The plant will have a capacity of disposing of 700 tonnes of waste every day”.