ROURKELA: A stench lingers around the under-construction hockey stadium, billed as India’s largest with world-class facilities, on the BPUT campus at Chhend Colony here. The proposed stadium will co-host the Men’s Hockey World Cup in January next year but less than 100 metre away, piles of garbage sit in the landfill site of BPUT.
With hardly 11 months left for the showpiece event, apprehensions are being raised over the timely completion of the bio-mining project to reclaim the garbage dumping site and give it a makeover.
Those familiar with the project said on January 5, the Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) invited a request for proposal (RPF) for bio-mining of legacy waste from the BPUT garbage dumping site through a management contract. On request of some prospective bidders, the RFP submission date has been extended till February 11 and on the same day, technical bids would be opened for evaluation.
If things go on expected lines, work orders could be issued in three-four weeks and successful bidders would take 30-40 days to mobilise equipment, machinery, and logistics to start work by early or mid-April. If work is carried out in two shifts daily, the dumping site will be cleaned up in five months. However, work would not progress for at least three months during the monsoon.
The RMC estimates the landfill site to have around 68,000 to 1 lakh tonne of mixed waste. Spread over around 10 acre, the site is in use for over a decade for dumping of non-segregated municipal waste in absence of scientific disposal mechanism till recently.
Reliable sources said with eight micro composting centres (MCCs) becoming functional, the volume of dumping of non-segregated waste has been reduced to 10-20 tonnes daily despite objection of the Odisha State Pollution Control Board.
The bio-mining project envisages excavation of legacy waste in the first step followed by stabilising the garbage through bioremediation. Next comes segregation of excavated waste followed by sustainable management of the same through recycling, co-processing, and safe disposal.
RMC Commissioner Subhankar Mohapatra said the bio-mining project aims to reclaim the landfill site for the development of a park. Work on it would start soon and RMC is hopeful of completing the project before the mega hockey event.