The Hindu Business Line : Waste management is big business now

Now these wastes have turned out to be major business avenues, thanks to the innovative methods of power generation from hazardous chemicals and municipal waste, according to the AP Principal Secretary for Environment and Science and Technology, Mr T. Chatterjee.

The situation has already reached the stage where the State is currently not in a position to produce the amount of waste that is required for generation of power. It now needs 175 tonnes of waste per hour to generate power and is running far short of such a quantity.

Addressing a seminar on `Environmental best practices' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Wednesday, Mr Chatterjee said the biomedical waste management has also become an attractive business proposition, yielding a profit of Re 0.50 per bed in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad alone. At present, the healthcare industry in the twin cities has a capacity of over 19,500 beds.

"Most of the AP-based industrial houses have become good corporate citizens on the environmental aspect. And it is not because of their concern for environment but mostly due to benefits they are getting from the waste management measures. The common effluent treatment plants in the industrial areas are now earning attractive incomes," he said.

Realising the potential in the area of waste management, banks and financial institutions have started lining up before such companies doing business with waste.

With the State Government encouraging projects for producing bio fuels that were generating assured returns in the range of around 400 per cent, the lending institutions have turned aggressive to fund these agro-business units, he said.

According to Mr Chatterjee, the competition to set up power projects based on the municipal waste has inflated substantially.

"Ring formations, which were predominant in businesses such as arrack and beedi leaf tenders, have now become a common scene in the waste management projects. As a result of this, the Government had to keep in suspended animation the power projects in several cities and towns in the State."

While a number of companies were now coming forward to set up power producing units from hazardous chemicals and municipal waste, the situation has eased the burden of environmental management on most of the companies, especially in the chemicals and pharmaceuticals sector.

"Keeping this in view, the State Government has decided to entrust the responsibility of environmental management to one single operator in the proposed Pharma City.

The operator in turn would charge service fee from the chemical and pharmaceutical companies in the Pharma City. Inspired by the model, several multinationals have come forward to set up their units in the Pharma City and have already bought over 60 per cent of the land in the project.

The demand is so high that small and medium sized units now cannot afford to buy land in the project," Mr Chatterjee said.

More Stories on : Environment | Andhra Pradesh

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