Work on waste-to-energy plant commences at Kapuluppada.

With the handing over of land to a private company, work on the waste-to-energy power plant is set to take off at the Kapuluppada dump yard on the outskirts of the city.

'The lease agreement has been signed recently and about 17.5 acres of land is handed over to Jindal Urban Waste Management (Visakhapatnam) and it has started construction work,' Municipal Commissioner M. Hari Narayanan told The Hindu.

The company has to complete the waste-to-energy plant incinerating municipal waste after segregating the non-combustibles to generate 17 MW of power. It will construct site office and compound wall first.

Another 2.5 acres is yet to be handed over to the company.

GVMC will provide solid waste after door-to-door collection from about 4.5 lakh households.

About 30 to 40 % of household waste being collected is separated as wet and dry now. It will gradually be scaled up to cover all the wards to ensure the supply to the plant, say sources. The solid waste generated daily is estimated at 1000 tonnes. As of now the waste is being transported to the dump yard. Once the plant becomes operational it will be handed over to the plant.

Simultaneously, GVMC has started work on creating a scientific landfill in two acres.

It is meant for disposal of waste after incineration of waste from the energy plant as well as the residue of bio-mining of the dump.

The dump yard is spread over nearly 100 acres and the garbage accumulated over the last 20 years is estimated to be around 5 lakh tonnes. GVMC has requested Coromandel International to take up bio-mining in five acres, Mr. Hari Narayanan said. “They are doing it free of cost and recover the money by selling the compost,” he said.

Re-mediating the dump yard was a huge task and expression of interest had been called from the other companies too, he said.

THE HINDU