Power drain: Freedom Park biomethanation plant generates a fractionof its capacity

It may be recalled that the BBMP authorities announced the plan to light up around 1,000 street lights in Gandhinagar, but nothing has been done till date.

By Y. Maheswara Reddy | NT

Bengaluru: The biomethanation plant at the Freedom Park is generating a fraction of its total capacity, thereby draining tax-payers’ money. The BBMP authorities have been spending Rs 1.36 lakh per month on the maintenance of the plant, but are able to generate only six kilowatts of electricity, which is barely enough to light the lamps inside the Freedom Park.

The biomethanation plant constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 79 lakh and has the capacity to produce 30 kilowatts of power on a daily basis. But it is compelled to scale down its capacity, as there were no facilities to utilise the electricity to light the street lights outside the Freedom Park in Gandhinagar. As per the Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) rate list, six kilowatts of electricity costs Rs 420 (each kilowatt costs Rs 70). The cost of electricity being supplied to the Freedom Park for 30 days is around Rs 12,600 (420x30). The BBMP is losing Rs 50,400 per month due to the underutilisation of the biomethanation plant. Initially, the BBMP has assigned Mailhem Engineers Private Limited to maintain it for three years.

“Our biomethanation plant is capable of producing 30 kilowatts of electricity on a daily basis. There was a proposal to supply electricity to nearby street lights, but nothing has been done to complete the tender process for installing new street lights,’’ said Ramgopal Rao, branch manager, Mailhem Engineers.

It may be recalled that the BBMP authorities announced the plan to light up around 1,000 street lights in Gandhinagar in 2015, but nothing has been done till date. The BBMP solid waste management department has been assigned to supply waste collected from hotels. “With most of the hotels closed due to Covid pandemic, we have to depend on cow dung to run the plant. We collect them from Chamarajpet, Cottonpet, and Chickpet,” said a BBMP assistant engineer.

The engineer has said the BBMP has floated a tender for the street lights recently. “As of now we are using the electricity generated by the biomethanation plant for lighting the lamps at Freedom Park,’’ he said.

The biomethanation plant at Freedom Park was set up in 2014 and began functioning in 2015 for three years. “It was shut down for one year (2018) due to the delay in renewing the contract,’’ said Ramgopal Rao. He said a similar plant was set up at a burial ground of Kuvempunagar ward in Yelahanka Zone. “The electricity supplied by the biomethanation plant is being used for 52 street lights,” he said, adding that a biomethanation plant at Aramane Nagar ward in Malleswaram Assembly constituency is closed due to the delay in renewing the contract.

Social activists blame the BBMP authorities for underutilisation of the biomethanation plant at the Freedom Park. “The need of the hour is to make better use of biomethanation plants to overcome power outages in Bengaluru. Most of the thermal plants in Karnataka are facing acute shortage of coal,” said Sai Datta, a social activist.

Demanding a stringent action against the BBMP authorities for underutilisation of the biomethanation plant, Venkatesh HM, a social activist, has opined that the authorities should recover the loss from the BBMP engineers responsible for the underutilisation of the biomethanation plant.

“It seems the BBMP engineers from the solid waste department are interested in getting commission from the private agencies. They are not bothered about the loss incurred to the BBMP due to underutilisation of the biomethanation plant,” he said.