Bhubaneswar, Sept. 16: Land hurdles have been cleared for the proposed power plant that is to generate electricity from solid waste dumped at Bhuasuni.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has agreed to one of the demands of a Mumbai-based private firm with some modifications in it for this first-of-its-kind project in the state. The Rs 200-crore project would be carried out in the public private partnership mode.

The firm that had won the bid to carry out the project was provided with 61.48 acres at Bhuasuni on the city outskirts. But, it later demanded 12 more acres in the same area. It also demanded the entire patch to be provided on a lease basis, as it wanted to keep the land as mortgage in the bank to collect funds for the project.

Earlier, the corporation did not accept these two demands. But, following a meeting of the housing and urban development department under the chairmanship of the development commissioner-cum-secretary, it was decided that the 12 acres of extra land would be provided to the private firm. But, the land would be provided to the firm according to the licence agreement.

"The private firm has agreed to this modification, and the work would start shortly," said the civic body's public relation officer Srimanta Mishra.

Now, the firm would start procuring necessary approval from other government agencies and the corporation would facilitate it in this regard.

Besides, there was a concern over the entire project area coming under the eco-sensitive zone boundary of the Chandaka-Damapara wildlife sanctuary. The department and the corporation would communicate with the ministry of environment, forest and climate change in this regard, so that the project would be carried out without any hitch.

The solid waste collected from Bhubaneswar and Cuttack would generate around 11.5 megawatt power. Besides, the ash created would be used in brick formation. Bhubaneswar generates around 400 tonnes of solid waste, while Cuttack generates around 150 tonnes every day.

The department has written letters to Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited to sign a power purchase agreement with the private party regarding electricity purchase from this plant.

A power body official said this was a good step. According to the renewable energy use guidelines, it is their obligation to go for such sources of renewable energy.

Till now, there is no clear-cut power tariff for electricity generated from solid waste. The Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission is to fix a rate. The production cost of this energy source is high, and this is going to affect the tariff for this power.

"We are looking forward to signing an agreement for power purchase," said power body manager (commercial) P.K. Pradhan.