North Delhi Municipal Corporation to start work on waste-to-energy plant at Bhalswa by August end

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation will start the construction of the city’s fourth waste-to-energy plant in Bhalswa from August 31.

The civic agency has awarded the contract to Essel Group, which will be establishing the plant on 12 acres, next to the Bhalswa landfill. While the construction is on, the company will have to take clearances from authorities concerned, including the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, by end of the year.

The deadline for commissioning the plant is August 2020, but the company will start collecting garbage for generating electricity from next year, an official from the North corporation said.

“The waste-to-energy plant will consume 1,500 metric tonnes of garbage every day and generate 15 megawatts of electricity. The company will be allowed to generate revenue by selling this electricity and, in lieu of that, it will be paying Rs 11.88 crore to the North corporation every year,” Veena Virmani, standing committee chairperson, said.

Once functional, it will be the city’s fourth waste-to-energy plant — after Ghazipur, Narela-Bawana and Okhla. While the plant at Ghazipur has a capacity to process 1,200 metric tonnes of garbage daily to produce 12MW electricity, the one at Okhla turns 1,500 metric tonnes of waste daily into 9MW electricity. The plant at Narela Bawana has a capacity to process 2,000 metric tonnes of waste to generate 20MW electricity.

The land earmarked for the waste-to-energy plant at Bhalswa was earlier being used as composting plant but it become non-functional after the corporation terminated the contract in 2015.

“Under the agreement, another company was to treat 500 metric tonnes of garbage, which steadily decreased to 100-200 metric tonnes. In March 2014, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee served a closure notice to that company for violating pollution norms under the Water and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act. The matter later went to the high court,” a North corporation official said.

Once the plant at Bhalswa is operational, the civic agency will shut the Bhalswa landfill and develop a green cover over the area.

The 40-acre Bhalswa landfill was commissioned in 1994 and was saturated in 2002. However, with no alternative site available, civic agency continued to dump garbage there, Virmani said.

At present, the North corporation generates 4,000 metric tonnes of garbage every day, of which 2,000 metric tonnes goes to Bhalswa landfill and the rest to the plant at Narela-Bawana.