Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - HT Navi Mumbai Live
Dumping of waste at Adharwadi resumes 2 mths after being shut
KALYAN: The Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) has resumed dumping waste at Adharwadi ground, two months after it was stopped here.
The alternative places, Barave and Umbarde plants, were flooding due to the recent rains and out of commission, due to which KDMC started dumping at Adharwadi in Kalyan West again. KDMC stopped dumping waste at the old saturated Adharwadi dumping ground on May 25.
“The flooding at the Umbarde scientific landfilling site after the recent downpour had halted the work, which is why we had to again resume dumping at Adharwadi,” said Ramdas Kokare, deputy commissioner, KDMC.
During the flooding, the machinery at the Umbarde site was submerged in water and the dry waste collected there also was washed away to the nearby farms. At the Barave project, the road leading to the site was flooded and the flood water entered the transfer station, where the waste is collected and segregated.
The Umbarde scientific land filling site has a capacity of treating 350 metric tons of waste while the Barave biogas plant and transfer station deals with 200 metric tons. As per KDMC, a total of 650 metric tons of waste is generated on a daily basis.
“We have been fighting from day one that Barave is not a proper site for waste management as it is prone to floods and there is a need for an alternate site. The civic body has neglected this fact,” said Sunil Ghegade, president of Barave Godrej Hill Samajik Sanstha.
“The Barave project is completely against the national green tribunal order, which states that such site should be away from human inhabitation. There are several residential complexes in the area.”
Meanwhile, the Alert Citizen Forum in Kalyan claimed that the closure is only on paper. “The dumping ground was never closed. When the civic body claimed that the dump yard was shut, we could see waste dumped on roads at several places and not collected for days. Our forum had also suggested several ways to manage waste with zero cost. However, the civic body was never keen on adopting any such methods and instead spent crores of rupees on projects that are a failure,” said Sajita Nair, member of Alert Citizen Forum.
As per the civic body, the Umbarde project will begin functioning on Saturday at a slow pace. “We have visited the site and the restoration of the machinery is in progress. We can start the plant gradually on Saturday. However, there are locals who have objected to the project, demanding to only allow waste from Kalyan (W) to be treated at Umbarde,” said Milind Gaikwad, deputy engineer, KDMC.
“We’ve put up a proposal to have separate sites for Dombivli, Kalyan East and Titwala so that in future there won’t be a load on Umbarde and Barave in case of any such incidents and also the Adharwadi dump yard can be permanently closed without any hurdles,” added Gaikwad.