A tale of two cities: As Chandigarh drags its waste, this Indore officer cleared 13 lakh MT garbage spread over 100 acres in 6 months

The amount that was spent in the project was almost a tenth of what the Chandigarh civic body is currently spending.

Chandigarh has taken the total expenses of bio-mining legacy waste to almost Rs 102 crore now – Rs 34 crore for initial 5 lakh metric tonnes and Rs 68 crore to clear the additional 7.67 lakh metric tonnes spread over 16 and 8 acres, respectively.

While speaking to The Indian Express, Singh explained how he revised the strategy and thought of not giving the work to any private agency. “When I joined the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) in May 2018 as the commissioner, 13 lakh MT waste was dumped on the ground and the IMC had achieved mining of just 2 lakh MT in two years. I decided to set a target to execute bio-mining all waste within next six months. Initially we were presented with several business models where the firms were asking upto Rs 65 crore for the 13 lakh metric tonnes of waste and a lot of time to implement the work. We did not have much time as we could not let the city suffer with the mountain of waste, and the deadline for swacch survekshan was approaching as well. Looking at the volume of legacy waste dumped at Devguradiya landfill, I revisited the whole strategy,” he said.

The landfill site at Indore after the garbage was cleared. (Express Photo)

Singh decided not to outsource work to any private firm. He added, “There were agencies asking for per cubic metre charge, which varied from Rs 430 to Rs 2000. In Indore, they were asking Rs 500 per cubic metre, which was costing us Rs 65 crore, which was beyond our budget. We decided to take machinery on rent and deployed 15-20 times more machinery and resources.

We operated the machinery in two shifts and completed the work in six months. The most interesting fact is that we spent less than Rs 10 crore and were able to complete the bio-remediation of legacy waste of approximately 13 lakh MT on December 5, 2018″.

Singh added that since a large number of machines were required, they decided to take trommels, screens, excavators, backhoe loaders on rent with operators and deploy all manpower.

“We deployed 15 trommels, 15 horizontal screens, more than 50 excavators, backhoe loaders with 200 plus workers to execute the work. Daily monitoring of the progress of the work was done by a team headed by me. So, we employed our workers and cleared it in six months. A private firm will not put up more than two to three trommels,” he added.
After a majority of the waste was cleared, only 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh metric tonnes was left which was also bio-mined later. A total of 15,00,000 tonnes of legacy waste was bio-remedised. The recyclables recovered from the process was sent for recycling and the polythene was sent to cement plants and road making.

The soil recovered was used for refilling the ground on the same site where greenery is being developed and the recovered construction and demolition waste recovered sent to the processing facility to produce building materials.
An approximate 15 per cent of the waste was sent to the secured landfill. The area of reclaimed land was 100 acres and its cost was around Rs 400 crore, he said.

Singh stated that he derives the will power from his father, a school teacher in a remote village of Uttar Pradesh, who etched this thought in him that he had to bring about a change as a civil servant. “It’s just will power. When you are determined, you can achieve everything,” he signed said.

Indore produces more waste

It must be noted that while UT’s dumping ground is 45 acres, Indore’s was 100 acres. While Chandigarh generates 550 metric tonnes of waste on a daily basis, Indore produces around 1200-1400 metric tonnes of waste per day. Waste to compost, waste to energy, home composting-wet waste, etc., are being done by the Indore Municipal Corporation. For dry waste, a mechanised material recovery facility (MRF) has been set up.

Officer Asheesh Singh. (Express Photo)

Mechanised MRF and home composting was started by Singh during his tenure and the work order for waste to energy was also given by him. However, the work only started last year.

Residents living near the dump have been witnessing a rise in several health problems since a decade now, including skin allergies, lung problems, etc.