Howrah waste to be shared by two civic bodies for avoiding excess piling in Belgachhia
Telegraph | 27 March 2025
Howrah's solid waste will now be dumped in Calcutta's Dhapa and in Hooghly's Baidyabati to stop the piling at the saturated Belgachhia waste disposal ground, which needs to be cleared immediately.
During a meeting on Tuesday, chaired by urban development minister Firhad Hakim, it was decided that the Howrah Municipal Corporation will transport the solid waste to the dumping grounds in Calcutta and Baidyabati.
The decision follows a landslide at the Belgachhia waste disposal ground that cracked a water supply line running under the ground. Dozens of hutments around the ground developed cracks while some collapsed, forcing the residents to evacuate. Howrah's waste used to be dumped at the site.
"No fresh waste will be dumped at the Belgachhia waste disposal ground," said a senior state government official who attended Tuesday's meeting.
"Howrah generates about 600 tonnes of solid waste daily. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the Baidyabati Municipality have to receive this waste. The waste hillocks at the Belgachhia waste disposal ground will be chipped off simultaneously. This legacy waste, too, would be distributed among these two municipal bodies," said the official.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Baidyabati Municipality will share the daily waste generated in Howrah.
The Dhapa and Baidyabati municipalities were selected because both have waste processing plants. This reduces the volume of waste that has to be dumped in the waste disposal ground and increases the life of the waste disposal grounds.
A large ground at Shibpur's Arupara will also be prepared to receive part of the waste. "The waste will be sent here for segregation (biodegradable and non-biodegradable). The segregated waste will be sent to Baidyabati and Calcutta," said an official of Howrah district administration.
Following the crack in the water supply line, water supply to large parts of Howrah was severely affected from Thursday morning till Friday evening. Supply to central Howrah was restored on Friday evening, and water supply to north Howrah was restored by Sunday morning.
Senior HMC officials and the district administration met at the office of the Howrah district magistrate on Sunday afternoon.
Following the crisis at the Belgachhia waste disposal ground, the state government sought help from a team of Jadavpur University professors. The team suggested to immediately reduce the height of the hillocks at the Belgachhia ground.
A senior official of the Howrah district administration had said earlier that the two hillocks were between 40m and 45m in height.
The JU team has suggested that ideally it should be half of that height, the official said.
The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), which is executing a biomining project at Belgachhia, has been asked to speed up the work.
Biomining is mining legacy waste to segregate items that can be recycled, which helps reduce the waste volume.
"The KMDA will be increasing human resources and machinery to speed up the work so that the hillocks can be cleared faster," a state government official said on Tuesday.