CHENNAI: If all goes according to plan, after a delay of almost nine months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chennai Corporation will finally begin biomining of the Perungudi dumpyard by January 2021.
It was supposed to begin in May 2020 but due to the lockdown, the civic body was not able to finalize the tender process.
Corporation officials said that the tenders are due in a couple of days and would be finalized by this year end. “This would be one of India’s largest biomining projects and would begin by January,” an official told The New Indian Express.
Biomining of the landfill will help the civic body reclaim 250 acres of the lost waterbody in Pallikaranai.
Reclamation of the marshland from the toxic landfills was on the cards for several years now. However, the project did not take shape till 2020.
Finally, earlier this year, the civic body made a proposal to the Chief Secretary of TN to biomine both the Kodungayur and Perungudi landfills at a cost of Rs 1250 crores.
However, financial aid was given for the biomining of Perungudi dumpyard, at a cost of Rs 350 crores.
Officials said that the civic body would be setting up bio-CNG plants at Chetpet, Madhavaram, Pallikaranai and Sholinganallur to process wet waste, converting it into renewable energy, while dry waste will be processed through shedding machines.
The Pallikaranai marshland meets the criteria to join the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty to conserve wetlands, which protects water bodies from further depletion. The Ramsar tag will give a waterbody international importance and it will directly come under the watch of international policies.
Some of the criteria which Pallikaranai meets are that it's a rare and unique type of wetland within an appropriate geographic region and it supports vulnerable and endangered species.
While it only needs to fulfil one criterion to be included in the Ramsar Convention, the marshland meets seven out of nine criteria overall. However, the Forest Department’s proposal to include the marshland in the Ramsar Convention is still on the backburner.
The Ramsar Convention would also help in allowing the marshland to be part of the global network of wetlands.
Factfile
Perungudi has six million cubic metres of waste.
80 hectares of marsh land used to dump waste in Perungudi.
Currently, the city generates average 5220 metric tonnes of waste daily.
Of this, 2610 metric tonnes is wet waste