THANE: Amid stiff opposition from locals, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) is close to finalizing a contract to set up an incineration plant at Daighar near Mumbra for processing over 600 metric tonnes of solid waste daily and turn it into energy.

The civic authorities are understood to have decided to appoint a technical consultant who would assist the TMC in choosing between the two bidders shortlisted from among 11 who had submitted their expressions of interest a year ago.

Officials said the waste-to-energy plant would be run on truck-loads of garbage, which will effectively be burnt in huge boilers. The steam generated out of burning the huge quantities of waste would help propel the turbines, which are linked to generators and subsequently produce electricity.

Sources said the bidders will sell a substantial portion of the electricity generated at the plant to prospective buyers, but only after lighting up the villages in Daighar-Shilphata areas of Thane.

"It is a design-build-operate-own-and-transfer project, where the private party gets a contract of nearly 40 years to process the city's waste. The electricity generated will have to be first supplied to locals around the plant at a concessional rate and then it can be sold to whomsoever. Such a project is reaping rich dividends for people around Delhi, where the Jindal group is operating the Okhla project," an official told TOI.

However, a section of officers and residents have reservations. Saying that this method of garbage disposal is harmful as toxic metals, dust particles and acid gas will be released in the atmosphere, locals have decided to oppose it.

Besides posing a health hazard, the plans have also raised eyebrows in the district administration circles as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is also in the last stages of giving a go-ahead for a similar project to dispose of solid waste of several cities and towns in Thane, Kalyan-Dombvili, Ulhasnagar and Ambernath. A Taloja plot has already been identified.

"The MMRDA has identified a 500-acre plot at Taloja where nearly 2,000 metric tonnes of garbage from the cluster towns of Thane will be disposed off. The corporations will merely have to segregate the waste and deposit it at a lifting point, which is acceptable to all the civic bodies.

A private contractor at Taloja will drive away with this waste.If the MMRDA is coming up with a dumpyard away from the city limits, it is surprising that the TMC should award a separate contract for a similar project," an official said.