Korean govt setting up RDF plant in Lalitpur

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Lalitpur, September 17

The ENVICO, a South Korea government organisation has been carrying out a feasibility study to set up RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) plant in Lalitpur. The RDF plant to be fuelled with 30 metric tons of garbage is taken as a technology transfer to Nepal.

“A team of consultants hired by the ENVICO body has been carrying out feasibility study to establish waste-to-energy facility (RDF manufacture) construction project in Lalitpur,” said senior engineer Prabin Shrestha of the Urban Development Division at the Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City. “The plant will be set up in assistance with the Korean government,” he added.

According to the LSMC, the plant site will be at Sundarighat of LSMC-4. “The study will be completed by the end of December,” said Pradip Amatya, chief at the Environment Division of the LSMC. “After developing all the strategies, the setting up of the plant will be started from the next fiscal year that begins on mid-July,” he said.

LALITPUR: Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City is all set to prohibit plastic bags in certain areas. “We have planned to prohibit plastic bags in some areas in the initial phase,” said Pradip Amatya, chief at the Environment Division of the LSMC. The areas are five government schools-Namuna Machhindra, Yashodhara, Shramik Shanti, Bal Binod and Nilnath, and two departmental stores-Namste and Everest, according to the LSMC. The plastic bags were already banned at the Central Zoo, Jawalakhel. -- BPA

The feasibility study of Rs 40 million began from last December. “The plant to produce gas, electricity, energy and manure will be of Rs 210 million project, which will be provided by the Korean government,” said Amatya. “The construction of the plant will be completed within two years,” he added.

A team of LSMC visited South Korea to observe the RDF plants on the last week of July. Now, a Korean team is in the city in a bid to speed up the activities of the project, said Shrestha. “If the local people will allow us, the plant will be established in the city.”

Amatya said that the LSMC had already sent the documents to the Ministry of Local Development for the permission to open plant. “The MoLD and Ministry of Finance has permitted us to set up the plant,” he said.

This project has come into existence at a time when the government is planning to allow private sector to set up garbage-fuelled plant for the sustainable management of the waste in the Kathmandu valley. The government has recently formed a high level committee to deal with the private sector, which is likely to begin the process to construct a 500 metric-ton garbage-fuelled plant in mid-December.

Dr Sumitra Amatya, general manager of the Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre under the MoLD, said that the 30 metric-ton plant would not be capable to solve the valley garbage where more than 600 metric tons of waste is produced. “We will keep on our project,” she, who is member secretary of the high level committee, said.