MUMBAI: What began as one of Mumbai’s most promising examples of community-driven sustainability has come to an abrupt halt since August this year. The city’s first community-level biogas plant (reported by TOI on May 3, 2018) driven by the Pali Hill Residents Association (PHRA), who brought in corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, has been shut down — eight years after it started converting neighbourhood waste into energy. The plant was set up at the at the BMC’s Pali Hill water reservoir.Back in May 2018, when the BMC’s ambitious waste-to-energy project at Deonar was still struggling to take off, the PHRA took matters into their own hands. A one-ton biogas plant was started that processed wet waste from around 70 buildings and 23 bungalows.The energy generated powered 69 streetlights across Pali Hill and nine at the Pali Hill water reservoir, turning the upscale residential pocket into a model for decentralised waste management. The plant had also received an award at the hands of the President during Swachh Sarvekshan 2019 for its successful model, the only such award received for a community-led initiative.Since August this year, that model has been closed abruptly. Madhu Poplai, secretary of PHRA, said that around August 12 she found out through the labourers working at the site that the plant has stopped working. “The BMC had appointed an agency to operate and maintain the plant. We were informed that they found it ‘unfeasible’ to continue running it, leading to a halt in operations. We were among the first localities to show that waste can be turned into energy at the community level. It’s unfortunate that instead of scaling up such efforts, the system is letting them fail,” she said.Poplai said she’s been following up with the BMC since August and had to also take up the issue with local MLA Ashish Shelar, who directed the BMC to immediately look into the matter.Assistant municipal commissioner of BMC’s H west ward Dinesh Pallewad confirmed that the agency running the plant was finding it unviable. “They told us that the machinery had also become old and there was a huge cost they were having to bear for its operation and maintenance. But we are checking the feasibility of the BMC carrying these out and negotiating with the same agency if they can run it again,” he said.An official from the solid waste department of the BMC said that they were optimistic about the plant being made operational very soon again. “The plant was taking wet waste also from restaurants in Pali Hill. For the first three years a tripartite agreement was signed between PHRA, the agency which set it up, and the BMC for running it. After competition of three years the same was handed over to the BMC to run the plant. The BMC had appointed an agency which now is not finding it feasible. We are negotiating to restart it,” said the official.
