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Decade on, Dera Bassi waste management project yet to take off
Mohali MC had prepared the detailed project report 11 years back at a cost of ₹100 crore, including the land cost
Even after a decade, the solid waste management project at Samgoli in Dera Bassi is yet to see the light of day as the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has backed out.
Now the state government is looking for the latest technology, by which refuse-derived fuel (RDF) or by-products produced from waste can be used to make coal to be sold to thermal plants in the state.
In March last year, the Punjab government had given approval to hand over construction and operations of the ‘waste to energy’ plant to NTPC. The state government had also given approval to the local bodies department for an MoU between NTPC and the Mohali municipal corporation (MC), being the nodal agency, for the execution of the project, but the project could not be materialised.
The project has been hanging fire for the past decade. Mohali MC had prepared the detailed project report (DPR) 11 years back at a cost of ₹100 crore, including the land cost.
A senior official of the local bodies department said, “We have not received any response from NTPC and are now working on the latest technology to process waste, which will help us make RDF into coal, which can be sold to thermal plants in the state. We will be sending the technology to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) for approval within a week.”
Currently, Mohali is generating 150 metric tonnes (MT) of garbage in a day, which is being dumped at an unauthorised site in the Industrial Area, Phase 8B; the nearby residents and industrialists are already protesting.
In August last year, Mohali had slipped to the 157th place out of 382 cities, in the nationwide Swachh Survekshan rankings. In 2019, the district’s rank was 153, while in 2018, it was 109. The main reason for Mohali’s worst slip is that the city failed to get garbage-processing projects off the ground.
When contacted, MC commissioner Kamal Kumar Garg said, “We have only constructed the boundary wall of the plant and the state government is in the process of signing a deal with the company with the latest technology.”
