MCG to dump fresh waste at a new site in Farrukhnagar for a year

To process the existing legacy waste at the city’s Bandhwari landfill, the dumping of fresh waste at the landfill is likely to come to a complete halt from next

To process the existing legacy waste at the city’s Bandhwari landfill, the dumping of fresh waste at the landfill is likely to come to a complete halt from next month onward for one year, said Vinay Pratap Singh, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), on Monday. Approximately, 1,100 tonnes of daily waste produced by the city will instead be dumped and processed at a Farrukhnagar landfill during this period.

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The shift in the dumping of waste is supposed to take place in a staggered manner as initially, the MCG is likely to use both the facilities, “After two weeks, as MCG officials get accustomed to the new facility, we will stop dumping the waste at the Bandhwari landfill,” Singh said.

Earlier this year, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had set a late-2020 deadline for the MCG to treat 28 lakh tonnes of legacy waste, accumulated over the past 12 years, at the Bandhwari plant. “The NGT had asked the civic body to bio-remediate the entire legacy waste at Bandhwari plant by the end of this year. However, this target was set before the national lockdown came into effect and, consequently, the machinery for processing the legacy waste got delayed. As such, an alternative site for dumping fresh waste had to be found by both the MCG and Municipal Corporation of Faridabad (MCF),” said Singh.

Another reason prompting MCG to look for an alternative site was to escape an environmental penalty being imposed by the NGT if no solution was found to the Bandhwari legacy waste, said senior MCG officials privy to the matter.

At the Bandhwari landfill, nearly 1,900 tonnes of waste is dumped daily by Gurugram and Faridabad together. In August 2017, a report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) found that the leachate overflow from the waste had resulted in contaminating the groundwater in a few areas in Faridabad, Gurugram, and south Delhi — all falling within a 10km radius of the landfill.

Singh said that MCF has also found an alternative site within their district to process the waste for Faridabad. Yash Garg, the MCF commissioner, said that the civic body is in the process of setting up a temporary processing plant near Sector 49 in Faridabad that is expected to be fully operational within the next three months.

The MCG will be submitting a report to the NGT on June 20 regarding the progress in the matter, which will be independently reviewed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), said Singh, adding that further said that the next hearing in this matter is scheduled for mid-July.

In November last year, MCG had got an approval from the state government to use a 25-acre land at Chand Nagar Ki Dhani Road in Farrukhnagar, located around 30 kilometres from Gurugram, for processing the city’s waste. However, a Farrukhnagar resident approached the judicial court in Pataudi in December 2019 and subsequently a stay order was put on processing the waste at the site, said Singh

“Earlier this month, the MCG had appealed on this stay and stated that the absence of processing waste was negatively affecting the residents of Gurugram and was likely to have far-reaching environmental implications. The court vacated the stay and we started our preparation for the new processing site,” said Singh

Singh, on Sunday, met with members of the Farrukhnagar Municipal Committee to chalk out the final plan for the project. “I told the members that the move is only a temporary one and we will be bearing the cost of the lease. As a gesture of their support, we also will be incurring the expenses for processing the waste collected by Farrukhnagar Municipal Committee, which will be around ₹80 lakh per year. Also, once we return to the Bandhwari plant, the infrastructure will be left behind for future use by the municipal committee,” he said.

Singh said that the MCG will return to the Bandhwari only if a substantial amount of legacy waste is cleared after a year and the landfill has enough space to accommodate fresh waste. “We have received a verbal agreement from the Farrukhnagar Municipal Committee in the matter and a formal agreement will soon be signed,” said Singh.

When asked about the matter, KK Yadav, secretary, Farrukhnagar Municipal Committee, said, “Farrukhnagar generates around 6 tonnes of daily waste. We were looking for a way to process it. Thus, when the MCG approached us with the proposal of waste processing, we immediately gave our consent to it as it will mutually benefit both the civic bodies.”

Ecogreen, the concessionaire for the city’s waste collection, will dump its waste at the new site and will revert to Bandhwari after a year.

“The work on setting up the infrastructure for the waste processing plant at Farrukhnagar is almost over. We are hoping to start the processing of waste either by the end of this week or early next week. While the bio-remediation process will start within the next ten days, the bio-mining of the existing legacy waste will start by mid-July,” Singh said.

Bio-remediation refers to the natural decomposition of waste with the help of either microorganisms or chemicals. Bio-mining, on the other hand, refers to the segregation of waste, before the final processing.