22 July,2011 07:09 AM IST | | Vivek Sabnis
PMC sends team to Japan to learn how to generate power from sewage, fails to implement plan
Even after the civic body spent a crore to send its team to Japan to learn the art of power generate from sewage treatment plant (STP), the efforts seems to have gone waste. For the last eight months, no work has been done and the Bhairoba Nala plant and the Naidu plant are not functioning as planned.
Wasted efforts: Even though the initial experiment at the Naidu plant
was successful, nothing has happened there in the last eight months
The aim was to generate 50 KW electricity in an hour. Though the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) said the initial experiment at the Naidu plant till last September was successful, nothing has happened at the plant in the last eight months.
The power generation machine at the plant. pics/vivek sabnis
Shrinivas Kundul, who is heading the project at Naidu Plant, said, "We are unable to generate the required amount of power because Naidu Plant does not get enough quantum of sewage water." And it is the same story at the biggest Bhairoba Nala STP in the city, which is also gathering dust.
Pramod Nirbhawane, additional city engineer, sewerage treatment, said he was unsure about the functioning of the Naidu plant. He said the Bhairoba Nala STP power generation project was functional. The issue has been officially raised by RTI activist Hemant Sambhus.u00a0
"Of the total seven power-generating units in Naidu STP, only one is functional. On that basis, the PMC can't claim the project is working," Sambhus said. Sambhus who has been approached by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have jointly issued a letter to Mahesh Pathak, municipal commissioner. MNS city president Prakash Dhore and others with Sambhus will meet Pathak today. Sambhus said the PMC had failed to deliver as promised and the project was a total failure.
The Other Side
Shrinivas Kundul said: "Initially, the machinery was functioning but there has been a slight problem recently. The power generation system was shut for two months, but we have started it again but it is yet to generate 50KW per hour as planned." He was not able to quantify the power generated by the Naidu plant. Kundul claimed that the Naidu STP hydro plant was functional only for an hour and created 30KW electricity in the day owing to insufficient water.
