MCG scraps waste treatment plant at Farrukhnagar

Giving into pressure from various quarters, the municipal corporation of Gurugram (MCG) on Thursday decided to scrap its planned waste treatment plant that was supposed

Giving into pressure from various quarters, the municipal corporation of Gurugram (MCG) on Thursday decided to scrap its planned waste treatment plant that was supposed to come up at a landfill on the outskirts of Farrukhnagar.

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This now leaves the civic body with no place to treat Gurugram’s waste, as a result of which operations at the Bandhwari landfill will continue.

Last year, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had directed both the MCG and municipal corporation of Faridabad (MCF) to stop dumping waste at the overfilled Bandhwari landfill, which was leading to various environmental hazards. It also directed both to find an alternative site to temporarily dump their city’s waste, while treating the 2.8 million tonnes of waste at Bandhwari.

For this purpose, the MCG had, last year, identified a 25-acre plot at Chand Nagar Ki Dhani Road in Farrukhnagar, located around 30 kilometres from Gurugram, for processing city’s waste and the estimates for processing the waste were also duly approved by the Haryana government. The MCG had set up the necessary infrastructure at the site and was set to start treating the city’s waste from June-end.

However, almost soon after the announcement, residents of 20 villages located over 5 km from the site, as well as local political leaders, protested. Despite a number of meetings between MCG officials and protesters, the plan could not move forward.

Officials said they are now looking at possible sites in neighbouring cities.

“We are looking at identifying panchayats in neighbouring cities that will permit us to use their land for setting up a landfill to transport Gurugram’s waste. We will be using a different strategy this time around, instead of first approaching the local civic body, we will instead get the consent of the people and then subsequently proceed with tying up with the concerned public body. This way the whole exercise will not be futile,” said Mahabir Prasad, additional commissioner, MCG.

Prasad said that the MCG will first sensitise the residents of the area about the positives of setting up the plant.

“Firstly, people need to know that the process of setting up a plant in their area is only temporary. We already have eight trommel machines that have started segregating waste at the Bandhwari plant. We are expecting 12 more such machines to arrive by November-end. The clearing of legacy waste would take us a minimum of six months or a maximum of 18 months. Once cleared, we will shift our entire operations back to the Bandhwari plant leaving the existing infrastructure behind for the local civic body of the particular city to use,” said Prasad.

He also said that as a trust-building gesture the MCG will collect the waste from the area where the plant will be built, free of charge. Once they return to Bandhwari, the local civic body can then continue to use the facility.

“Even at the finalised site, we will not be using the landfill to simply dump waste. We will be treating, and segregating waste there to derive three main materials- inert, compost, and refuse-derived fuel (RDF). Inert is used in construction projects, compost is used as fertilizers, and RDF will be used in the waste-to-energy (WTE) plant at Bandhwari for converting waste into electricity,” said Prasad.

As per MCG officials, privy to the matter, the civic body has been offered land by a few local political leaders in Mewat, and they are exploring the possibility of setting up a plant there.