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In green push, Bathinda to get 50 tonne biogas plant
In a bid to improve waste management, the Bathinda municipal corporation will soon set up a compressed biogas plant, which will treat 50 tonnes of biodegradable waste on a daily basis.
vishal.joshi@htlive.com
In a bid to improve waste management, the Bathinda municipal corporation will soon set up a compressed biogas plant, which will treat 50 tonnes of biodegradable waste on a daily basis.
Municipal corporation (MC) officials say the plant, which will be set up with the Centre’s assistance, will be ready in a year. The petroleum and natural gas ministry had proposed setting up a biogas plant. Municipal commissioner Rahul said, “The upcoming project will be established in private public participation (PPP) mode and it will generate 50 tonnes of gas per day.The basic idea behind setting up this plant is to recycle the city’s waste.”
The project is being set up under the Centre’s Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) Scheme, which allows entrepreneurs to sell CBG in the market.
“The MC will have no capital bearing on the project. We will only provide five-acre land and supply municipal waste. Engineers India Limited, a central organisation, will provide technical support to execute the project. Entrepreneurs can set up bottling plants or sell the end product to oil companies,” said the commissioner.
On the site for the plant, he said, “The proposed project will be set up on Mansa Road, where solid waste management is already being done. Around 25 years ago, the site was used to dump city waste when the waste management plant was located on the city’s periphery.”
The city, which has been witnessing rapid urbanisation, has outgrown the waste yard. With a waste mountain of 22 lakh tonne legacy waste, the site has emerged as an eyesore.
MC’s superintendent engineer Sandeep Gupta said work to remove legacy waste is underway and the site would be cleared by June this year.
“The new plant will be equipped to handle around 50 tonne wet waste per day for the next 25 years. Another 60 tonnes of dry waste will be treated by the existing waste management plant once it is upgraded. Several entrepreneurs, including public sector oil companies, with bottling units in Bathinda are also offering to set up CBG facilities,” added Gupta.
