CM Pinarayi Vijayan to set Brahmapuram on roll

Kochi: Ending several years of uncertainty, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will lay the foundation stone for the city corporation’s Brahmapuram waste to energy plant by the end of this month. “The Chief Minister will be in Kochi on March 22 and 31 and we are planning to hold the foundation stone-laying ceremony on March 31,” said Mayor Soumini Jain. The Mayor had a meeting with the Chief Minister at Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. Recently, the State government appointed district collector Muhammad Y. Safirulla as the implementing officer of the project. A state-level advisory committee was also proposed to monitor the process of implementation of solid waste management projects in the state.

The inordinately delayed project has got a new impetus with the government’s recent decisions. The 28 acres of land required for the project has already been handed over to GJ Eco Power Limited, the company setting up the plant. “We have already received the land and the permission from Social Forestry Department to cut the trees in the project site. All the mandatory clearances including the environmental and Pollution Control Board NOC will be received in a couple of days through Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation single clearance window. The company will begin land development soon after the foundation stone-laying.  Construction works can start before the onset of the monsoon,” said Amith Viswanath, spokesperson of GJ Eco Power Private Limited.

The waste-to-energy plant, the first of its kind in the state, will be set up at a cost of Rs 375 crore and the company will run it for 15 years.  As per the initial feasibility study, 500 units of electricity can be generated from one tonne of garbage.  With a capacity of treating 300 tonnes of waste, the plant can generate 5 to 6 MW of electricity per day.