Hyderabad: The apathy of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation officials has left the Fathullaguda construction and demolition processing plant in the lurch for five years now.
Officials now claim that the legal hurdles have been cleared and it would commence in five months.
Even though the civic body has been impressing other municipal corporations in country through power point presentations in various public for a, it has miserably failed to implement it at the ground level.
Interestingly, the civic body in order to benefit Ramky Enviro Engineers, has accorded permission for collection, transportation, processing and management of construction and demolition of waste on a public-private partnership (PPP) model. The corporation has been also paying a tipping fee of Rs 342 per kg of debris to the private agency.
However, the corporation officials claimed that the establishment of the construction and demolition plant has been completed in Jeedimetla which would open later this month.
During November 2016, a detailed project report prepared by the Centre for Fly Ash Research And Management (C-FARM), New Delhi, in association with the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) under the ministry, pegged the quantum of construction debris generated per day in the city at a total of 750 metric tonnes.
This is dumped indiscriminately in nalas, tanks, and on the roads, the removal of which costs the corporation Rs 10 crore per annum. However, five years have passed and the corporation is yet to finish the construction of the C&D plant and the current debris dumped on city rose to 1,200 metric tonnes.
According to highly placed sources, corporation officials have given several power point presentations on various solid waste management programmes across the country and received awards for effective methods on paper.
The corporation for five years has only managed to identify the site at Fathullaguda and the claim is that the C&D plant at Jeedimetla is still in the final stages of completion.
The corporation’s decision to finalise tenders and accord permission to transport building waste to the Jawahar Nagar dumpyard prior to the construction of the C&D plant was only to benefit them. As per the agreement, Ramky Enviro Engineers was awarded the work pertaining to ‘collection, transportation, processing and management of construction and demolition of waste in GHMC’ on a PPP model at Fathullaguda and Jeedimetla. This will be for a period of 25 years at a tipping fee of Rs 342 per metric tonne at an estimated cost of Rs 3 crore as tipping fee a year for each plant.
Sources claim that the estimated cost to set up both the plants would cost the GHMC Rs 30 crore, which would generate employment for at least 1000 people, save about Rs 8 crore in annual tipping fees and sell the processed products.
Construction waste contains soil, sand, gravel, bricks and masonry, concrete, metal and wood, of which 38 to 40 per cent is recyclable, which could be recycled, reproduced, re-used and sold. When queried, a senior GHMC official, on condition of anonymity, said that GHMC has no mechanism to operate the C&D plants.
