Amritsar MC to take action as firm fails to start bioremediation project
Charanjit Singh Teja
Amritsar, February 6
After inspection of Bhagtanwala garbage dump site, Municipal Corporation (MC) Commissioner has issued instructions to take action against the solid waste management company for not fulfilling the terms of the contract. MC Commissioner Harpreet Singh instructed officials to impose penalty as per clause of the contract on the solid waste management firm which breached the condition.
What is bioremediation?
Bioremediation is a biological process that uses living organisms, usually microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) and plants, to degrade, remove, alter, immobilise and detoxify waste products. A trimble machine crushes garbage and automatically segregates plastic, debris, soil and manure. After bio-treatment, garbage can be used as manure in fields.
The firm was supposed to start bioremediation plant after segregation of waste and install leachate treatment plant, but it failed to do so.
The development comes after the MC Commissioner, municipal health officer Dr Yogesh Arora and chief sanitary inspector JP Babbar visited garbage dumping site at Bhagtanwala and reviewed the progress of the bioremediation and leachate treatment plants. Pankaj Upadhyay, consultant of the solid waste management firm — Averda — was also present on the occasion.
The MC Commissioner was apprised that the civic body gave contract to the firm for the processing of the garbage. The company failed to start the bioremediation plant after segregation of wet and dry waste and to install leachate treatment plant even after several years of bagging the contract.
Earlier, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had imposed penalty on the MC and asked it to initiate the processing of garbage, construct a boundary wall around the dump site and develop a green belt in the area in 2018. Officials of the MC had claimed to start the bioremediation plant several times in the past, but the project never took off properly.
There are around 30-feet-high garbage heaps on 20 acres dump site at Bhagtanwala. At least 15 lakh metric tonnes of garbage is lying on the site. The solid waste management company — Averda — once started the bioremediation plant in October 2020, but it stopped working soon.
