Bengaluru, Nov 11 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for a Rs 160-crore Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG) plant in Bengaluru on November 13, which is expected to provide a long-term solution to the city’s solid waste management challenges, Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya said on Wednesday.
Addressing the media during an awareness programme about the project at the Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC) plant in Bommanahalli constituency, Surya said the proposed facility would be the first of its kind in Karnataka and South India to be established by India’s leading state-owned natural gas company and a central public sector undertaking (PSU), GAIL.
He said residents in the locality had been suffering for the last 25 to 30 years due to the poorly managed compost plant, which receives around 500 tonnes of wet waste every day. The foul smell emanating from the facility spreads across three to four kilometres, causing considerable inconvenience to residents.
“At the demand of residents, the Karnataka government had banned and stopped the plant’s operations in 2008. However, it was restarted in 2013 due to the absence of an alternative. The leachate (polluted liquid) generated from the waste has contaminated groundwater, besides causing air, water and other forms of environmental pollution,” he alleged.
Surya said he and Bommanahalli MLA Satish Reddy had worked over the last three to four years to find a sustainable solution under the Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban and the SATAT scheme.
The proposed plant will have an initial processing capacity of 300 tonnes of wet waste per day, which can subsequently be expanded to 500 tonnes. The project is expected to be completed within 15 months and will process close to one lakh tonnes of wet waste annually. It will address nearly 40 per cent of the wet waste generated in Bengaluru South, he said.
Explaining the circular economy model of the project, Surya said the wet waste would be converted into biogas, which would be supplied to households through pipelines. Organic manure generated at the facility would also be supplied to farmers.
“Nearly 25,000 households in Bengaluru will receive cooking gas from this plant. Around 900 LPG cylinders will be saved every day, amounting to approximately 3.2 lakh cylinders annually. This will result in foreign exchange savings of around Rs 27 crore for the country,” he said.
The plant is also expected to generate around 22 tonnes of organic manure every day, which can be utilised by farmers in and around Bengaluru.
Describing it as the Narendra Modi model of development, Surya thanked the Prime Minister for sanctioning Rs 160 crore for the project, which will be fully funded by the Central government. He urged the Karnataka government to coordinate with GAIL to establish at least 10 similar plants at different locations across Bengaluru.
Surya also launched a sharp attack on Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge, accusing him of neglecting law and order issues while focusing on the RSS.
He alleged that Bengaluru and Karnataka were facing increasing problems due to drug mafias and infiltration, with several college students falling prey to drugs. He also claimed that hundreds of Bengaluru residents were approaching him and local MLAs every day with complaints about cybercrime.
“What is the Home Minister doing? He is obsessed with the RSS. We need a serious Home Minister whose job should be to focus on law and order in the city and the security of the state,” he said.
Accusing Kharge of spreading unverified information through social media, Surya called him a “fake news peddler” and alleged that he was behaving like a social media troll instead of concentrating on his responsibilities.
He also questioned the Home Minister’s proposal to establish a fact-checking unit, alleging that the minister himself was making unverified claims while seeking to set up a mechanism to counter fake news.
“If the Chief Minister can grant one wish of mine, I would request him to give Karnataka a serious Home Minister who likes to do his job. I don’t think that is too much to ask,” he said.
Responding to Kharge’s demand that the RSS register itself as an organisation, Surya said the Home Minister was free to use all the powers available to him to pursue the matter.
“Let him get it done. Let him use all the powers at his disposal. Let that be his legacy,” he said.
–IANS
mka/dan
