Pune civic body’s waste processing success story struggles to keep going

“The civic administration set up biogas plant in some electoral wards to reduce the load on the high capacity plant at Uruli Devachi. These plants also generated power to light up street lamps in the area,” said Suresh Jagtap,deputy municipal commissioner.

However,the civic administration’s proposal to increase the number of such plants and use fund of Rs 10 lakh allotted to each electoral ward to be clubbed for setting up 39 more plants have been shot down. “Only 13 amenity locations are available and we will have to look for more locations,” Jagtap said.

“The proposal was rejected by the standing committee after the elected representatives raised objection over its implementation,saying a plant jointly for five electoral wards would create inconvenience for citizens of one electoral ward while the waste of adjoining wards will be used,” said member of standing committee,Ujjwal Keskar.

He said the committee also felt that it was difficult to bring five corporators together for a joint project and it was not possible to allot all the identified amenity space for the plants.

Deputy city engineer Rajendra Raut said the city engineer’s department has not taken any decision on the number of amenty spaces to be allotted for setting up plants as it has to be used for various other purposes.

The success of the first few projects increased the demand and the civic body in a year started 11 plants across the city,Jagtap said. “The state government has appreciated the success of the project and is promoting it as a model to be implemented elsewhere. All the urban local bodies in the state have been urged to visit the plants and implement the same in their respective jurisdictions. Other states have also expressed interest in the project and delegations are visiting the civic body,” he said. Each plant generates around 300 unit of power a day to light up 70 street lamps.