‘Need 18 months for processing’

The BMC on Tuesday informed the court that it would take “approximately 18 months” to complete the processing of garbage by closing 65 hectares of the Deonar dumping ground.

After watching an audio-visual presentation about the need for processing of garbage at the Deonar dumping ground, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the five-member expert committee to inform the court whether the garbage at the city’s oldest and largest dumping ground can be scientifically channelised without posing environmental hazards.

However, in the meanwhile, Justice DY Chandrachud said, “let the process go on,” and sought the committee’s report and the corporation’s affidavit by August 24. The committee that includes Dr Sandeep Rane, along with environmentalists and experts from BARC, IIT and NEERI, was set up by the court on July 21.

The committee was constituted to look into the feasibility of decentralising dumping of garbage in view of a contempt petition moved by Dr Rane with regard to Mumbai’s oldest and largest dumping ground at Deonar.

Rane had earlier informed the court that Dr Sharad Kale, who is on the court-appointed committee, had developed a cost-effective garbage disposal plant which each ward should set up to avoid the concentration of the city’s garbage in once place.

Rane submitted that Kale’s plant could reduce pressure on existing garbage landfill sites at 1/3rd the cost as opposed to the Rs3,495 crore budget proposed by the corporation.

The residents of the Deonar area had opposed partial closure of the 110 hectare dumping ground apprehending haphazard dumping, smoke and stench and demanded complete closure of the ground for processing and composting of garbage. Fearing contempt of court, the corporation had decided to close 65 hectares of the ground for processing of garbage.