GURGAON: Principal secretary of the Haryana Urban Local Bodies department, P RaghavendraRao, held a meeting with the senior MCG officials on Wednesday. While Gurgaon’s several issues were discussed in the meeting, the focus remained on improving the appalling situation at the solid waste management plant in Bandhwari. The owner of the private agency operating the Bandhwari plant, who was present in the meeting, expressed his concern of inadequate power supply, resulting in the plant processing only around 150 metric tons out of the total 900 metric tons of garbage it receives every day.

Assuring the operator that the plant will get ‘uninterrupted’ power supply for at least 20 hours every day, Rao said that considering expansion and population growth in both Gurgaon and Faridabad, there is a need for independent solid waste management plants. “Gurgaon is expanding so fast that it should at least have one independent solid waste management plant of its own. It can have small plants on each side of the city so that carriage time of garbage is also reduced considerably. In Pune there are over 20 solid waste management plants and a similar model can be adopted here,” said Rao.

The plant operator promised to increase processing of garbage in the coming days and claimed the capacity would increase to 600 metric tons by August 15 and 1,000 metric tons by the year-end. At present only 150 metric tons of solid waste is being processed every day and around 750 metric tons remain dumped inside the plant.

In order to choose alternate sites for setting up such plants, Rao asked the MCG officials to consult officials of the Forest department and Pollution Control Board so that there is no environmental hurdle later. MCG commissioner P C Meena informed the senior state official that Gurgaon needs at least three solid waste management plants, for which sites were being identified. He said the plants can be set up in IMT Manesar, Daultabad and Sohna. He said that door-to-door collection of garbage was being done in 122 colonies in Gurgaon and rest of the city was divided in zones where separate sanitation contracts have been given. According to authorities, the MCG pays Rs 1.30 crore every month to all the three major sanitation contractors in the city. The councillors have sought information about penalty imposed on the contractors over the past one year for failing to improve the condition.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/Principal-secretary-meets-top-MCG-officials-Bandhwari-plant-in-focus/articleshow/21718077.cms