Long-term plan delayed, waste to keep piling up at Deonar

Mumbai will have to continue dumping over 10,000 metric tonnes of garbage daily at the Deonar dumping ground, as part of the alternative method of constructing 10 bio-methanisation plants as a long-term measure to deal with solid waste management in the city has hit a road-block. Tenders invited for toilet construction in May did not receive any responses from contractors, and the BMC has now re-invited tenders. The project will be pushed forward by another six months at least.

Following directions from the state to come up with a long-term measure to manage solid waste, the BMC had decided in April to set up 10 bio-methanisation plans in the city. It was expected to take care of about 1,200 metric tonnes of waste daily, and convert it to energy.

It had identified three sites for constructing three of these plants and floated tenders in May inviting applications to construct them. The construction was to complete within a year.

A senior civic official of the solid waste management department said, “We did not receive any responses at all for the first tender. We recently released a second tender with some changes and the process will take up to three months before work on construction on biomethanisation units can begin.”