Utpal Borah inaugurates the project. A Telegraph picture

Nov. 6: Lack of a scientific solid waste disposal system has not only hurt Duliajan’s proud claim to be one of the best managed towns of the country but made the oil township one of the most polluted in the Northeast.

However, following several appeals from citizens of the modern township, Oil India Limited (OIL), the nation’s second largest oil PSU (public sector undertaking), took up a municipal solid waste-processing project, which is the first of its kind in the region.

Utpal Borah, the resident chief executive of OIL’s Duliajan field headquarters, formally inaugurated the project at the oil township in the last week of October.

The medical department of the oil PSU initiated the eco-friendly project to be run by engaging an NGO near Duliajan railway station at a cost of Rs 62 lakh, complying with all norms under the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000, an OIL official said.

This has been done to avoid indiscriminate disposal of solid waste, generated (around 30 tonnes) daily in the oil township with an eye on converting waste into useful products and by-products, thereby bringing the “zero waste” philosophy into reality, the official said.

The processing unit is equipped with degradable and non-degradable sub-units and the segregation of waste will be in three separate areas — light (paper, vegetable and food waste), medium (polythene, plastic, glass and metal) and hard (twigs, tree branches, wooden and building scrap material and silt).

Besides, the PSU’s medical department has already installed a (36-kl per day capacity) biomedical water treatment plant and (10kg per hour capacity) incinerator in its hospital.

A team of officials from the Central Pollution Control Board visited these establishments last month and appreciated the company’s effort towards achieving a pollution-free environment.

“Proper and scientific garbage disposal had become the need of the hour for Duliajan town which had witnessed a rapid growth in population. Several people had approached us to do something so that the town is able to remain pollution-free, which is why we took up the initiative,” Borah said. The company’s initiative to keep the town free from pollution has earned applause from the local people.

“The onus will be on the people of Duliajan to utilise the system. Otherwise, such an expensive system to dispose of garbage will be of no use,” Rekha Choudhury, a housewife, said.