Deonar waste will take 14 years to clear, cost ₹2,500 crore: BMC | Mumbai news
MUMBAI: After the Maharashtra government’s demand that the BMC carry out biomining of the solid waste in the Deonar dumping yard and hand over the freed plot to rehabilitate Dharavi residents, the BMC’s head honchos held a meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the issue. They arrived at the conclusion that the biomining would cost them ₹2,500 crore, besides which it would take at least 12 to 14 years to complete.
Officers from the BMC’s solid waste management (SWM) department also told municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani that it was not possible to carry out the biomining, as there was no space in the city to dump the byproducts generated from it. Biomining of solid waste is a process that involves the excavation, treatment and separation of the waste for reuse.
“The Mulund dumping yard is much smaller in size, and we have been biomining waste there for the last six years, but have still not completed the exercise,” said a key officer of the SWM department. “It will take us at least 12 to 14 years to bio-mine the Deonar garbage. The cost is enormous. Besides, Dharavi residents have already objected to being shifted to land reclaimed from a dumping yard.”
Last October, the state cabinet decided to give 125 acres of land from the Deonar dumping ground for rental housing for those declared ineligible for free housing in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP). This was apart from 255 acres of salt pan lands at Kanjurmarg and Mulund, 140 acres of land at Madh island and 21.25 acres of Kurla Dairy land for the rental housing project.
On January 24, Ashok Hazare, a section officer of the state revenue department wrote to Gagrani that the Deonar land had to be given back to the state free of garbage. Prior to this, Satish Bagal, the resident deputy collector of suburban Mumbai, had written to the revenue department to get the plot cleared before the Dharavi housing allotment was undertaken.
Dharavi residents who have ground-floor shanties and have constructed houses prior to January 1, 2000 are eligible for housing inside Dharavi while those who have settled there later than the cut-off date will be given houses in the rental housing scheme at a cost of ₹2.5 lakh per tenement.
After facing strong opposition from residents and BJP leaders in Mulund, Kurla, Dahisar and Bhakti Park, which were initially marked for the rehabilitation, the state housing department turned to the Deonar dumping yard plot where the BMC has stopped dumping solid waste. The plot belongs to the suburban collectorate and is owned by the revenue department of the state government. It is in the BMC’s possession.
The state government has been corresponding with Gagrani to hand over the 326-acre plot for DRP rental housing. The BMC will retain 75 acres for various activities, including generation of electricity from waste.
A senior officer of the SWM department said that at ₹1,200 per tonne, it would cost the BMC ₹2,500 crore to bio-mine Deonar’s 20 lakh tonnes of waste. “If the BMC spends such a large amount, it will majorly dent its finances, as it is already spending huge sums of money on the coastal road and the Goregaon-Mulund tunnel,” he said.
The Deonar dumping yard site has been in use since 1927. The height of the waste there is 40 metres or equivalent to a 13-storey building. To convert the waste, the BMC has also undertaken a waste-to-electricity project at Deonar.
When contacted by HT, BMC officers refused to comment. SVR Srinivas, officer on special duty in Dharavi, said that he had yet to see the letters written by the government.
