The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) plans to set up a waste-to-energy plant at Turbhe under the Swachh Bharat Mission being implemented by the Ministry of Urban Development (MUD).
The NMMC proposal foresees an investment of Rs 180 crore for the project, which includes developing an 8 to 10 MW power plant and expansion of its existing municipal waste processing unit under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
NMMC officials said that the proposal, once approved by the general body, will be sent to the Maharashtra government for approval.
The Navi Mumbai region produces 675 metric tonnes of solid waste every day (projected to go up to 1,000 metric tonnes in the next ten years).
“This solid waste can be converted into Refused Derived Fuel (RDF) or fuel plates that will be used as a clean energy resource to fire the power plants,” said Mohan B Dagaonkar, city engineer, NMMC.
Mr Dagaonkar sais that the corporation already has a waste-processing unit, run by Navi Mumbai Waste Processing Pvt Ltd, which rolls out 100 metric tonne of fuel plates every day; it has been “functional for the last three years, but is not getting enough buyers. So, we are planning to have our own waste-to-energy plant.”
NMMC’s proposal says that it may tie-up with the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and IIT Bombay for technical advice.
Under the MUD’s Swachh Bharat Mission, the Centre is providing grants for municipal solid waste management projects for each city at the rate of Rs 240 per capita (as per census 2011).
In addition , the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has notified a generic tariff of Rs 7.04 per unit for plants using municipal solid waste and Rs 7.90 per unit for RDF-based plants.
According to a recent letter issued by the MUD to the states, CERC is also in the process of amending the Electricity Act 2003 to include a provision making it mandatory for state electricity distribution companies to “purchase all power generated from municipal solid waste.”
(Pradeep Pandey is a freelance writer)
