MCG serves notices to 326 RWAs for not setting up composting plants

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has served notices to 326 residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) of various condominiums and residential societies across

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has served notices to 326 residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) of various condominiums and residential societies across the city for failing to set up composting plants, officials said on Sunday. The move is primarily aimed at reducing load at the Bandhwari waste plant, they said.

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The notices have been issued to the RWAs of only those societies that produce a minimum of 50 kilograms of municipal waste every day.

The officials said that the RWAs have to inform MCG the reason for not establishing such a facility, and based on their replies the civic body will decide whether to issue fines to them.

“As per the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, each residential area needs to have a composting plant of its own. We observed that 326 such RWAs have not obliged with this rule and have given them two weeks to respond to our notice. If their replies are found to be unsatisfactory, we will be levying ₹25,000 fine on each of them,” said Inderjit Kulharia, joint commissioner, MCG.

Kulharia said that it is an “ongoing process” and MCG officials have been tasked with finding more such RWAs that have not established composting plants in their respective areas.

A senior MCG official privy to the matter said that most RWAs are likely to end up paying the penalty to the civic body. “As per our observation, an individual produces 400 grams of waste per day. Hence, it is unlikely that any RWA can take refuge in the fact that their residential area does not produce 50 kilograms of waste per day,” said the official.

The residents’ bodies have said that the civic body should have given more time to set up a composting unit.

“We have received the notice from MCG and have passed on the information to our builder which is looking after the maintenance of the society presently. Regardless, two weeks’ time is too short for any society to establish a composting unit. The MCG should make this as a mandatory provision in building plans as some societies like ours simply do not have the space for setting up a composting plant,” said Puneet Goyal, president, Tulip Violet RWA.

Goyal said that a more feasible option is that MCG can lease their own land in every residential sector where a large-scale composting plant can be set up, and waste from all residential areas can be dumped and accordingly processed, with each RWA bearing the operational costs for it.

As per official records, there are more than 6,000 registered RWAs in the city.

The MCG’s move holds importance as the civic body has been struggling to find an alternate site for dumping and treating waste generated by the city, which produces around 1,000 tonnes of daily waste.

Last year, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had directed MCG to stop dumping waste at the Bandhwari landfill and temporarily find an alternate site to dump and treat Gurugram’s waste until 26 lakh tonnes of legacy waste is cleared at Bandhwari, which was leading to environmental hazards.

Just a week before it was scheduled to dump and start treating Gurugram’s waste at a 25-acre site at Farrukhnagar in June, protests by nearby villages and some political groups led to MCG terminating its decision. After this, the civic body has identified a nine-acre site in Nuh to do the same, but this too is facing opposition from locals.

Amid the uncertainty, officials said that MCG wants to ensure reduction in the daily waste load at Bandhwari plant by establishing more composting plants in residential areas.

MCG officials also said that compost plants will also help residents know the method of segregating waste. They said that this will help in ensuring that bio-medical waste does not get mixed with dry and wet waste, a problem the corporation is facing at many locations.

“Until we find an alternate site for dumping and treating city’s daily waste, we are exploring various ways to reduce the daily load of waste that ends up at the Bandhwari landfill, one of which is to increase the total number of composting plants in the city. In addition, composting plants are also useful in getting people into the habit of segregating waste. In several areas, we have found bio-medical waste being mixed with dry and wet waste. We are also working towards ending this issue,” said another MCG official.