Though the plant was ready for operation by June last year, BBMP was only able to supply wet waste to the biogas unit by January 2015.
The Bangalore project of Mailhem Engineers Pvt Ltd that was started in 2013 to generate power using wet waste is now shut due to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) faltering to pay for the last three months.
Lakhs of rupees were spent by the BBMP to organise ‘Wake-Up, Clean-Up Bengaluru’ at Freedom Park in January, 2013. The objective was to create awareness on the importance of segregating waste to avoid Mandur-like-situations at other landfills situated on the outskirts of the city. During the week-long awareness programme, BBMP had invited private companies to establish bio-gas units to generate power by using wet waste from hotels and households.
It was then that Mailhem Engineers, a private company, which uses ‘State-of-the-art technology and methodology to develop renewable energy,’ started a bio-gas unit in Bangalore. The construction work began on June 3, 2013 at Freedom Park and went on till June 30, 2014. The idea was to generate power by using wet waste from Gandhinagar, Subash Nagar and Chikpet. The total cost of the biogas plant was estimated to be Rs 1.20 crores.
Though the plant was ready for operation by June last year, BBMP was only able to supply wet waste to the biogas unit by January 2015. The unit took three months to generate power after that.
However, the biogas unit is now shut down due to delay in funds sanctioned for its maintenance. According to Naveen A R, project manager of Mailhem, the plant has the capacity of converting five tonnes of wet waste into energy but BBMP is only able to supply one tonne of wet waste. “The BBMP authorities first delayed supply of wet waste by six months. Now they have been delaying the payment for the maintenance of the biogas unit from the last three months. We are yet to receive Rs 40 lakhs from them,” Naveen said.
When iamin contacted Darpan Jain, special commissioner of BBMP, he said that he had already instructed the engineers to process the bills of bio-gas plant in the last meeting. “I will ask the engineers to expedite the process to clear the pending bills. I am confident that the problem will be solved within a week,” Jain said.
Currently the power generated from the biogas plant is able to light around 40 lights at the Freedom Park. “The biogas plant is generating 50 electrical units per hour. If the BBMP starts supplying five tonnes of wet waste, we can even generate power enough for streetlights around the Freedom Park," explained Naveen.
BBMP has been spending a lot of money to convert waste into energy. They have also prepared a number of reports on the need of establishing waste management units at various locations in the city.
For the longer version of the report, click here
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