Jalpaiguri to generate power from rubbish

TT, Jalpaiguri: Officials of Jalpaiguri municipality said on Monday that they would start generating electricity from the gas that would be obtained by recycling the garbage collected from the town every day and would sell the same to the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited.

This is the first such initiative by any civic body in north Bengal.

Santanu Maitra, the executive officer of the civic body, said: "We will build a gas plant at the rubbish dump in Balapara (on Jalpaiguri outskirts). Organic gas will be created from the trash that is collected from all wards of the town. The gas, in turn, would be used to run turbines which would generate power."

He claimed that every day, around 2,500 kilowatts of power would be generated from the plant and would be sold to the Power Grid Corporation at Rs 8 per unit.

"Altogether, we would be earning around Rs 20,000 every day and around Rs 70 lakh a month," said the civic official.

As a part of the process, the civic body on Sunday invited tenders for the project. "We will spend around Rs 12 crore on the project. The tenders were floated and we have invited quotations from competent agencies and companies," said Mohan Bose, the civic chairman.