Visakhapatnam: Waste-to-energy plants still in limbo

Visakhapatnam: Though a year has passed by, not even a single waste-to-energy project has taken off in Andhra Pradesh. In 2016, the AP government had granted permission to 10 urban civic bodies in the state for entering into agreements with private players to set up waste-to-energy plants from garbage. The government planned to produce around 66 MW from 4,500 tonnes of waste per day through this project.

Civic bodies in Vizag, Guntur among other areas handed over the lands to private firms few months back, which have not started the development works till date. Meanwhile, in Tirupati and Nellore, civic bodies have been struggling to allocate suitable land for private firms due to objections raised by locals in those areas. Locals and civil society organisations have approached courts against the allocation of lands near residential areas.

Municipal administration department minister P. Narayana said that as per agreement 15 MW power will be produced from the W2E plant in Vizag and. “A 15 MW plant will come up at Guntur, 6 MW at Tirupati and 5 MW at both Kadapa and Tadepallegudem under Swachh Andhra Pradesh scheme. “The W2E plants will help the local bodies to solve the problem of garbage disposal and it will produce power at cheaper rates,” he added.

Coming to Vizag, GVMC commissioner M. Hari Narayanan said that they have handed over 15 acres land to a private firm to set up the W2E plant near the Kapuluppada dumping yard. “If everything goes as per the proposed plan, the plant operations will start by 2018, as the civil works for set up of the plant is yet to begin,” he added.

Sources said that the number of sanitation workers in urban civic bodies is around 1.24 lakh and a fleet of 830 vehicles were engaged to shift waste to 59 dumping yards. “There is an urgent need to increase the number of sanitation workers and vehicles for better waste management and operational of the W2E plants,” a GVMC official said.

He said that clearing the allotted lands suitable for plant works, sinking bore-wells and few others works were taken up on the massive scale on our part. “But works are delayed as most of the assigned private firms are yet to procure the required infrastructure,” the official said.