A CORRESPONDENT
SHILLONG: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, along with the Ambassador of South Korea to India, Chang Jae-Bok, on Tuesday inaugurated the pilot project for a refuse derived fuel plant in Tura, the district headquarter of West Garo Hills.
A first-of-its-kind project in the entire country which has been set up by a Korean company, the plant situated at the landfill site at Rongkhon Songital is a collaboration of the Government of Meghalaya, the Tura Municipal Board and Chamhana GW of South Korea.
The current project in Tura has been envisioned as a working model demonstration (Proof of Concept), to manage the daily incoming municipal garbage of Tura town and its adjoining areas.
Inaugurating the project, the Chief Minister said that the entire concept of turning waste to energy will completely redefine people's perception of waste and garbage disposal.
"When I visited this site (landfill) I really wanted to do something and I didn't know what and how, but I knew that we needed to reverse this entire process of dumping the garbage here to making this place green again and more importantly finding a way… a technology that could enable us to ensure that the future waste that we generate could be put to a lot of things," the Chief Minister said.
Talking at length about the project, the Chief Minister informed that the project was conceptualized way back in 2019, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic it had to be put on hold.
The currently installed waste to energy plant will work by converting all waste, except recyclables like metals, glass wood and e-waste, construction waste etc., into fuel briquettes.
The fuel briquettes can then be used as a replacement for coal and charcoal.
The Chief Minister was optimistic that if the pilot project is successful then the Government will expand and install similar waste conversion plants in other parts of the State.
Terming the project as a win-win for all, Ambassador Chang Jae-Bok, who is on his maiden visit to Meghalaya, said that the pilot project is the start of many meaningful and mutually beneficial collaborations that Korea and India could have in the field of technology that has the potential to greatly enhance the quality of people's lives.
"Our (Republic of Korea) Embassy in New Delhi will make our effort to further develop this kind of mutually beneficial projects and cooperation in the future", he said.
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