Chronicle Reporter, Bhopal, The BMC has resumed dumping of garbage at Bhanpur Khanti. The dumping had been stopped a year back. Every day 40 per cent of garbage collected from all over the city is dumped here.This comes to about 200 truckloads of garbage.
Officials conceded that garbage is being dumped at Bhanpur, but they argued that it is being converted into compost. However, experts said it would be impossible to process or recycle the already dumped 18 lakh tones of garbage if new garbage continues to be dumped.
Work for scientific closure of khanti
Earlier the civic body had started work for the scientific closure of Bhanpur dumping grounds. Surat’s Saurashtra Enviro Project Pvt. Ltd. is recycling 300 tons of garbage daily and making building material, compost manure and plastic in its plant. Thus 8 lakh tonnes of total waste will be recycled in the next three years.
The municipal corporation will pay the company Rs 52 crore. It will give recycled material to BMC. The Central Government had advised the BMC to work on this technology for scientific closure of dumping grounds.The BMC will also get 40 per cent grant from the Centre. Recently, such plants have been set up in Delhi and Bangalore.
The company will recycle the existing plastic and compost manure will be made from the waste of last one to two years. The remaining waste will be used for making paving blocks and other building materials.
Bhanpur khanti was closed in 2017
Significantly, Bhanpur Khanti was started 40 years ago after filling of dumping grounds at Ashoka Garden. New dumping grounds were needed after 2001. But in 2017, the BMC closed the Bhanpur dumping grounds and started sending garbage to Adampur. But now dumping has started again.
The company will give building materials, compost manure and other products to the municipal corporation. BMC can use them for their own projects and even sell them sell them if they get large quantity of product.
Green space will be developed on 21 acres of vacant land. NGT has instructed the corporation that greenery should be developed instead of commercially utilizing this land.
Earlier the BMC had planned to complete the work of scientific closure of the dumping grounds on PPP mode, but no agency was ready to do the work on account of condition of developing green space.