BMC to shut Mulund dumping ground and start Deonar plant

Mumbai: Desperate times call for desperate measures. Amid depleting capacity to dispose of waste, the BMC has decided to shut down the Mulund dumping ground and kick-start the waste-to-energy (WTE) plant at Deonar this year.

According to civic officials, work for the recovery of the Mulund dumping ground will start during 2018-19, resulting in recovery of 24 hectare of land and bio-mining of about 7 million tonnes of waste.

The BMC has awarded the Rs 731 crore contract to the consortium of Prakash Constrowell Ltd., Infotech International Ltd., and EB Enviro Biotech Pvt. Ltd. for six years to reclaim land at the dumping ground in a phase-wise manner. About 70 lakh metric tonnes of garbage will be cleared from the dumping ground.

For the waste-to-energy (WTE) project at Deonar dumping ground, the BMC has decided to conduct a geological survey for landfill. The civic body intends to convert the debris, spread across 12 hectares of the Deonar dumping ground, into electricity.

A senior civic official said, “Considering the technical and economic realities, the WTE plant project at Deonar has been restructured. We shall now initially construct a 600 tonnes per day (TPD) plant at Deonar. Depending on its success, two more WTE plants of the same capacity can be constructed there. A budget provision of Rs 110 crore has been proposed in budget estimates.”