Waste collected from all over Kozhikode city is heaped at Njeliyanparamba, where the waste to energy plant is proposed to be set up.
| Photo Credit: K. Ragesh
The raging fire at Brahmapuram waste management plant in Kochi has raised concerns about Kozhikode’s own unit at Njeliyanparamba.
A minor fire at the plant, which generates manure from biodegradable waste, on Sunday has added to the anxiety of having a Kochi-like situation in Kozhikode as well. That Zonta Infratech, the company managing the plant at Brahmapuram, also has the contract for a waste to energy plant at Njeliyanparamba is reporterdly an added concern.
Zonta Infratech has two contracts with the Kozhikode Corporation. One is a ₹7.75 crore contract for bio-mining (excavation, treatment, segregation, and gainful utilisation of legacy waste) and capping (covering the remaining biodegradable waste with soil). The other is a ₹250 crore project to construct a waste to energy plant in the plot, which is considered to be the first of its kind in the State. Four years after the contracts have been signed, there has been criticism within the Corporation council that the company has failed to complete even half of the works under the ₹7.75 crore contract and not even started the works on the other.
Meanwhile, the contract between Zonta Infratech and the Corporation, which was renewed four times due to reasons such as flood and COVID-19, has not been renewed after the last tenure concluded in November 2022, though the company had demanded renewal. There has been recent reports that Zonta Infratech had sought the technical support of Japan-based JFE Engineering Limited, which has an experience of setting up over 350 waste to energy plants across the world.
Meanwhile, fires are nothing new at Njeliyanparamba, though they have never gone out of control. The emission of methane gas, as part of the decomposition of organic waste, catches fire when it comes in contact with oxygen. The waste dumped at Njeliyanparamba is moved constantly using an earth mover to avoid larger concentrations of methane. However, the local people of Njeliyanparamba have complained that the activities at the dumping ground have been on a standstill for at least four months, and hence the recent fire.
The United Democratic Front council party at the Corporation has demanded the Corporation to blacklist Zonta Infratech, considering its reported poor track record. It has also sought immediate intervention in the issue considering the ecological impact on the neighbourhood due to the company’s action or rather the lack of one.
