State’s first WTE plant to come up in Kozhikode

Work on the project at Njeliyanparamba to begin in August; it is expected to be completed by September 2023

The construction of the Kozhikode Corporation’s waste-to-energy (WTE) plant, the first of its kind in the State, will begin in August this year. Corporation Secretary K.U. Bini said the civic body had obtained all statutory clearances for the project, and with the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) agreeing to purchase power generated at the plant at ₹6.81 per unit, there were no more hurdles. It was in 2018 that the corporation decided to construct a WTE plant at Njeliyanparamba near Cheruvannur, which already houses the corporation’s solid waste treatment plant. The foundation stone for the plant was laid in 2020, but the project could not be taken forward without removing around 1.3 lakh cubic metres of legacy waste from the treatment plant. Meanwhile, bio-mining to get rid of the waste is in progress. Legacy waste is often used for land filling, but with the lockdown and other COVID-related issues, it proved to be a difficult task. Besides, uncertainties over the sale of power to the KSEB also delayed the project.