Urban News

According to MR Shah, Principal Advisor to the MMRDA’s Solid Waste Management Cell, the processing unit at the landfill site would take up 17 hectares and development of other infrastructure would take another 25 to 30 hectares. “The landfill site will be progressively occupied. The processing unit will be set up in 17 hectares. There is surplus land in hand and we want to use it for solar park and also organic farming as compost if freely available,” said Shah. He added that huge land cost is the major deterrent for setting up a solar park in most case, since there is zero land cost here it is easy to set it up. The MMRDA is still working out the exact area where the solar park will be set up.

“We have made a survey on the Taloja plot and the sun yield is good to set up a solar park. It receives 200 days of continuous sun rays as per the requirement,” Shah said. 

Solar parks are being set up in Patan, Gujarat where the state government is in talks with Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC)  to fund its most ambitious project to promote solar energy on a 3,000-hectare plot, and it has also been set up in Haldia, West Bengal on 250 hectare plot. 

The power generated from the park would either be hooked back in the grid as per the norms or will be utilised for the running of the processing unit.

Meanwhile, the MMRDA is also keen on organic farming. “There is a new trend that we have seen. Organically cultivated crops fetch 20 per cent more cost as they are chemical free. The developer is free to choose on cultivating or giving it to someone else,” Shah said.