Mumbai: Mulund's waste woes won't go away until monsoon

The Mulund dumping ground is the second largest dump yard in city. File pic

After not getting contractors for setting up a waste processing plant in the ground, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has finally got a couple of bidders. Civic officials claim they are hopeful of appointing a contractor and starting work by the monsoon.

Reached saturation point
A senior civic official from the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department said, "The fresh tenders have got a good response and if everything goes as per the plan, then we will finalise the contractor and the work will begin by monsoon. The Mulund dumping ground has already reached its saturation point so we need to start processing waste quickly."

BMC has been forced to re-invite tenders at least five times in the last one and a half years as the contractors either refuse to work due to stringent contract conditions or BMC ends up rejecting their bids because they fall short on the qualifications criteria required for the job. The Mulund dumping ground is spread across 25 hectares and in the last 44 years, about 70 metric tonnes waste has been dumped there. The Mulund dumping ground is the second largest dump yard in city.

Waste management crises
The Mulund ground crossed its capacity years ago. However, since there is no alternative space, garbage is still sent to there. To tackle this issue, BMC has proposed to process 60 lakh metric tonnes of waste there, an exercise that will cost them about R650 crore. BMC is currently going through a massive waste management crises, as all three of the city's dumping grounds - Deonar, Mulund and Kanjurmarg - have reached their capacity. BMC has planned to start waste-to-energy units in the Deonar and Mulund grounds. Another official said, "Till the time we get a new place for dumping waste, we have to process as much waste as possible within housing societies. After the Deonar dumping ground fire, the Bombay High Court had also pulled up BMC for waste mismanagement and banned new construction in the city till alternatives were found for discarding garbage."

70
Metric tonnes of waste dumped at Mulund

60 lakh
Metric tonnes of waste BMC has proposed to process at Mulund dumping ground

Rs 650cr
Cost of processing 60 lakh metric tonnes of waste

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