After 4 years, GHMC yet to construct C&D plant

Hyderabad: Despite tall claims of setting up a Construction and Demolition (C&D) Plants, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has just managed to identify two lands since four years.

The Corporation has been claiming that the city has been producing 10 per cent of building waste out of the total 4,500 metric tonnes garbage but failed to lift it. 

Even though the Corporation impressed other Municipal Corporations through presentations, in various public forums, it has miserably failed to implement the ground-level work.  Interestingly, the civic body, in order to benefit Ramky Enviro Engineers has accorded permission for collection, transportation, processing and management of construction & demolition waste on PPP mode. 

The Corporation has been paying tipping fee of Rs 342 per kg debris to the private agency.  The Corporation has also been spending Rs 10 crore annually in the name of removing construction debris from nalas, tanks, and roads.

In November 2016, a Detailed Project Report prepared by the Centre for Fly Ash Research And Management (C-FARM), New Delhi, in association with the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) under the ministry concerned had pegged the quantum of construction debris generated per day in the city at a total of 750 tonnes. The Corporation has just managed to identify two places for setting up C&D plants in Fathullahguda and Jeedimetla. 
As per the agreement, Ramky Enviro Engineers was awarded the work pertaining to ‘Collection, transportation, processing and management of construction & demolition waste in GHMC’ on PPP mode at Fathullaguda and Jeedimetla for a period of 25 years at a tipping fee of '342 per metric tonnes with an estimated cost of '3 crore as tipping fee per year for each plant.

When queried about this, a senior GHMC official, on condition of anonymity, said that since the construction of C&D is yet to be completed, Ramky Enviro Engineers have been collecting the unclaimed building waste and dumping it in the Jawaharnagar dumping yard. 

He said that Corporation has been paying tipping fee only for unclaimed waste and for claimed waste, it has been collecting the fee from persons concerned and paying them to the private agency. 

GHMC to collect Debris Fee from residents

GHMC has now decided to collect debris fee from the residents in advance for disposing the waste generated from the Construction and Demolition (C&D) of buildings.

Tendering process for this has been finished and an agreement will soon be signed with the concessionaire agency, Ramky Enviro Engineers, towards the installation of the plants.

It may take three to four months more before the plants in Fathullahguda and Jeedimetla begin operating, making Hyderabad the fourth city in the country to have such a facility after Delhi, Ahmedabad and Nagpur. 

The Corporation officials said that setting up C&D plants would be a time consuming process where it has to prepare norms to process the building waste and its transportation prior to their operation. 

The construction waste contains soil, sand, gravel, bricks, concrete, metal and wood, of which 38 to 40 per cent is recyclable. The waste might be used to produce ‘kankar’, sand, ready mix concrete, paver blocks and so on.