New Delhi: The Niti Aayog has suggested setting up an authority which will take up installation of “waste-to-energy” plants in public-private partnership (PPP) mode to clean up municipal solid waste, which, it said, has become a “serious threat” to public health.
“The mountains of waste, which can now be seen in nearly all cities, have become a serious public health threat,” it said.
Noting that rapidly rising prosperity has resulted in generation of vast volumes of solid waste in the cities, the Aayog underlined that cities have been “slow to develop effective ways” to dispose municipal waste. It called for accelerated action to combat the problem.
The Aayog made the recommendations in its “Three Year Action Agenda, 2017-18 to 2019-20”, released recently by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.
“To speed up the process of cleaning up municipal solid waste, it may be worth exploring the possibility of an authority at the Centre to spread the use of ‘waste-to-energy’ plants,” it said.
Such an authority can be called “Waste-to-Energy Corporation of India (WECI)” and placed under the housing and urban affairs ministry, the Aayog said.
“Just as the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has been instrumental in developing high-quality national highways through public private partnership (PPP) across the country, the WECI may set up world class waste-to-energy plants through PPP mode across the country,” it added.
The authority can play a “key role in fast-tracking coverage” of waste-to-energy plants across 100 smart cities by 2019, the Aayog said. As per the 2011 census, 377 million people living in 7,935 urban centres generate 1,70,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste daily.
