North Delhi corporation’s Rani Kheda waste plant operational

NEW DELHI: Making arrangements for processing the entire construction and demolition (C&D) waste generated in the area, North Delhi Municipal Corporation has made its Rani Kheda C&D plant operational.
Officials claimed that C&D waste had started coming to the plant and work to process 1,000 tonne of waste daily would begin as soon as the machines are set up. Currently, North DMC has a C&D plant operational at Burari with a processing capacity of 2,000 tonne of waste every day.
“On an average, 2,200 tonnes of waste is generated in the area daily.Of them, we are able to process 2,000 tonne at Burari. But we needed arrangements to meet the current, as well as the future requirements so this plant was in the pipeline for a long time,” a North DMC official said.
“Due to the Covid pandemic, generation of C&D waste has been reduced as development projects are fewer in number. We are expecting the waste generation to increase by the end of this year when construction activities resume,” he added.
Developed through a new technology, the plant at Rani Kheda will be pollution-free as a separate set of machinery would be installed to settle down dust particles and keep material semi-wet. “There would be a machine installed to sprinkle the water constantly and depending on requirement. This would help the dust mitigation regularly. Considering the issue of dust pollution increases during winter season, this arrangement would help in utilising all C&D waste from roadsides as well as reducing dust problem,” the official explained.
The by-products of the C&D plant would include stones, bricks, tiles and soil. “The concessionaire can sell these items to the government agencies or others for utilisation in various development projects. We are expecting to make this project fully operational by October end,” said the official.
For the convenience of the general public, the civic agency has identified sites for dumping of waste generated from houses during the construction work. “However, for material in larger amounts, the civic agency asked to dump it directly to plant and pay some prices also. But people often dispose of the waste on road sides or open sites leading to pollution and inconvenience,” the civic official said.