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Saving LMC?s bio-energy plan from being wasted
IN A renewed effort to revive the defunct Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) venture to generate power from waste, senior Urban Development and LMC officials would hold a meeting with a team of Assets Reconstruction Company India Ltd (ARCIL) officials here on December 22.
IN A renewed effort to revive the defunct Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) venture to generate power from waste, senior Urban Development and LMC officials would hold a meeting with a team of Assets Reconstruction Company India Ltd (ARCIL) officials here on December 22.
As a prequel to this meeting, Principal Secretary Amal Kumar Verma has asked LMC officials to draft an action plan as also the terms and conditions of the agreement with the ARCIL before restarting the plant located at Dubbaga on Hardoi Road.
“The ARCIL officials would also visit the site to make an on-the-spot assessment of the plant and machinery. If things move smoothly, the plant should be functional by the first quarter of 2007,” said a senior LMC official.
“During our last visit, we found the digesters and some other essential parts of the power plant in poor condition but the ARCIL officials are confident that it would take off without a hitch,” said municipal commissioner RB Maurya.
Funded by the ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (NCES) to generate 5 megawatt of power from garbage, the project was abandoned by its Chennai-based promoters Asia Bio-Energy Limited on December 20, 2004 reportedly over differences with LMC on the supply of segregated garbage.
The LMC was supposed to get Rs 60 lakh annually from the company as per the deal. At the outset, however, the plant was reported to be producing electricity far below its installed capacity. The company even went to the extent of ‘buying’ cow dung from the market just to keep its boilers working.
“The terms and condition would more or less remain the same except issues like the quantity-quality of waste its segregation/transportation and profit-sharing on which a workable formula has to be formulated,” said additional municipal commissioner AC Sinha.
To develop proper landfill sites for dumping garbage, a proposal earmarking these spots in the State capital has now been submitted under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNURM) for funding, according to LMC officials.
