Mumbai firm to handle Agra's waste disposal

Disposing of solid waste is fast becoming an unmanageable problem in Agra, with the municipal trenching grounds overflowing with tonnes of urban waste generated every day.

And seeing the opportunity and handsome profits in solid waste management, several companies have offered projects under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to produce things like bio-fertilisers and electricity from this urban waste. The Agra Municipal Corporation is analysing some proposals.

Hydroair Tectonics (PCD) Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based environmental engineering company, has also jumped into the bandwagon, offering to develop a Rs 60-crore project in Agra that will transform urban waste into bricks, fertilisers and coal, while paying an annual licence fee of Rs 1 crore to the Agra Municipal Corporation.

Company representatives recently met Agra Mayor Anjula Singh Mahore, who gave her approval in principle for the project, seeking a detailed feasibility report from the company.

According to Mahore, the company had asked for a 30-acre stretch outside the city where it would establish three waste disposal plants, manufacturing products like bricks, fertilisers and coal.

She said the company would pick up the waste from municipal trash bins as well as the overflowing trenching grounds, thereby clearing the area and handing it back to the Municipal Corporation to be used for other purposes.

The Municipal Corporation had suggested that since the waste collection infrastructure of the Agra Municipal Corporation was already in place, it could be utilised by the company for picking up the waste for door-to-door at some negotiable amount, she said.

Hydroair Tectonics (PCD) Pvt Ltd has been handling over 150 common effluent treatment plants (CETP) and solid waste management setups in various private and public sector companies like dairies, sugar mills, distilleries, textile mills, and breweries in the country but this will be the first time when it has sought to take up an entire city's solid waste management.