Ghaziabad civic body’s first solid waste transfer station opens

Civic officials said each of the transfer stations will require only about 500-1,000 square metres of land as against 3,000-4,000 square metres of open dumping facilities. Ghaziabad city currently generates daily solid waste about 1200-1400 metric tonnes

The Ghaziabad city on Saturday started the first of its five mechanical solid waste transfer stations that have the facility to compress the waste in huge containers for further transport in an enclosed manner to waste processing sites. Municipal officials said the work on the other four transfer stations is underway and they are likely to become operational by May.

The automated facility was inaugurated by Ghaziabad MP VK Singh at Akbarpur-Behrampur in Vijay Nagar zone. (Sakib Ali/HT PHOTO)

The automated facility was inaugurated at Akbarpur-Behrampur in the Ghaziabad municipal corporation’s Vijay Nagar zone and the station has a capacity to cater to about 200 tonnes of waste per day. Officials said they are planning ti have 10 huge containers at each of the five sites and three compacting machines per site .

“In the previous process, there was a huge spread of solid waste outside residential localities and the conditions got worse in the monsoon. There was hardly any waste segregation and unhygienic conditions prevailed. Now, the door-to-door collection vehicles will bring daily solid waste to the new stations which are enclosed facilities,” said Mithilesh Kumar, the corporation’s city health officer.

“Once the waste is received at the site, it will be compressed with machines and bundled directly into the huge containers. Each of these containers has a capacity to hold 20 metric tonnes of solid waste and have doors which can be closed. Once the waste is compressed in the form of blocks, they will be shifted in an enclosed manner by container trucks to our waste processing site. This is a much hygienic process and is used in the smart city of Indore. Even in the eventuality of waste not being transported to the processing site any day, the waste will remained compacted in closed containers and no unhygienic conditions will prevail,” Kumar said.

Civic officials said each of the transfer stations will require only about 500-1,000 square metres of land as against 3,000-4,000 square metres of open dumping facilities. Ghaziabad city currently generates daily solid waste about 1200-1400 metric tonnes.

The corporation has proposed the other four stations in Jhandapur (Vasundhara zone), Lajpat Nagar (Mohan Nagar zone), Hindon Vihar (City zone) and Madbhuban Bapudham (Kavi Nagar zone). Officials said the cost of each station is estimated to be about ₹4-5 crore and all five stations will come up on a public-private partnership basis.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on March 6 refused to interfere with the ongoing construction of the transfer station in Jhandapur after resident Haji Arif moved the tribunal seeking that the transfer station be constructed elsewhere.

The city also has 463 door-to-door collection vehicles that cover of about 80% of the 100 residential wards. Once the transfer stations become operational, these vehicles will bring all solid waste to the five authorised sites for further processing.

“This is the first of five stations. The solid waste will be compacted and residents in the surrounding areas will also have hygienic conditions. The process at the station will be mechanical and it also has provisions for wet and dry waste compacting,” Ghaziabad MP general (retired) VK Singh (retired said while inaugurating the facility on Friday.

The corporation with the establishment of the transfer stations intends to gain points in ongoing Swachh Survekshan – 2023 for better handling of solid waste and improve upon its ranking.

The Ghaziabad city during 2022 Swachh Survekshan secured a national rank of 12 in category of cities having a population between 1 to 4 million. The city in 2021 edition secured a rank of 18 under the category. During the previous Survekshan in year 2020, the city secured 19th position while in 2019 it secured the 13th rank.