Aurangabad, Feb 6:
The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has geared up to set up its third big garbage processing plant at Harsul. The civic administration has floated a tender inviting the contractor to design, install machines and commission the plant of capacity to process 150 metric tones (MT) of garbage daily.
Earlier, the state government had released Rs 91 crore to AMC to start a garbage processing plant in the city. Later on, the AMC decided to start four plants - in four corners of the city - as a result, the cost of detailed project report (DPR) of Solid Waste Management got revised up to Rs 148 crore. The state government gave in-principle approval to it. Hence the AMC decided to start plants at Harsul, Chikalthana, Padegaon (each of 150 MT capacity) and Kanchanwadi (30 MT).
Accordingly, processing plants at Chikalthana and Padegaon got started. The processing plant at Kanchanwadi started functioning recently. However, setting up of plant at Harsul was lying pending. The civil work is yet to be complete.
It may be noted that the state government has conditioned the AMC to put in a share of Rs 24 crore in the DPR of Rs 148 crore. Hence, if the AMC does not contribute its share, the government would not be releasing further money.
Meanwhile, the AMC has invited contractor to install the machinery and commission it. The tender has to be submitted within one month. An expense of Rs 18 crore is expected to be spent upon the project. The cost of machinery would be around Rs 3.25 crore and Rs 15 crore is needed to operate and maintain the plant (Rs 3 crore per year) for the five years.