MoHUA Inks MoU To Develop Large Scale Waste To Wealth Plants In 59 Million Plus Cities

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and Engineers India Limited (EIL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build waste-to-energy and bio-methanation projects in million plus cities as part of India's "Green Growth" agenda.

Focusing on this objective, MoHUA has decided to set up large-scale solid waste processing facilities in million plus cities. 

There are 59 million plus cities in India like Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Nasik, Thane, Nagpur, Gwalior, Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore to name a few. 

These cities are home to nearly 600 million people, which is approximately half of India’s urban population.

In the first phase, 25 million plus cities will be selected for developing large-scale process plants. 

EIL will assist and handhold the million plus cities in developing such projects for larger quantum of waste integrating circularity in waste management.

The collaboration for providing support in preliminary technical assessment and Transaction Advisory services from EIL will have significant impact on waste management. EIL will also handhold ULBs in carrying out monitoring processes of these PPP projects during the construction phase and will assist in obtaining statutory approvals. 

"The initiative will result in an additional processing capacity of 15,000 tonnes per day (TPD) for Bio-Methanation and 10,000 TPD for Waste to Energy respectively" according to MoHUA.

Waste to Energy and bio-methanation projects will integrate the concept of circularity in waste management by producing green energy from dry and wet waste components of municipal solid waste. 

The by-products such as electricity and Bio-CNG will also help in achieving sustainability of waste management operations.

The thrust on sustainable solid waste management has been strengthened under the ambit of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, with the overall vision of creating garbage-free cities. 

“In February 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inaugurated Asia’s biggest municipal solid waste based GOBARdhan plant in Indore aiming to generate 19,000 kg bio-CNG gas. Under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, the biomethanation plants linked to the GOBARdhan and SATAT schemes will produce Bio-CNG as a renewable energy” official document noted.