The Municipal Corporation of Delhi on Wednesday announced budget estimates for the year 2012-13, significantly increasing the councillors' funds in all the wards and focusing on improvement and development of roads and existing infrastructure. With the MCD headed for a split this coming April, Leader of the House Subhash Arya presented the budget saying that future corporations will abide by the allocations.

KOCHI: The attempt of the Kochi Corporation to set up a bio-gas plants for decentralised treatment of biodegradable waste has failed to yield results despite spending Rs 61.61 lakh. This was owing to the lack of proper monitoring and timely remedial action.

At the tip of the 30-mile-long peninsula that hosts one of the busiest ports in the world, Finland's Neste Oil has just finished converting a plot of land reclaimed from the sea into the biggest biodiesel refinery in Europe.

The €670 million ($850 million) investment by the state-controlled company in the plant, which is already transforming vegetable oil and waste animal fat into diesel, aims at benefiting from European Union policies that seek to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks.

Katra: Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, Katra, has found a novel solution to the problem of waste generated by mules. Over 40 tonnes of dung being excreted by mules every day on the 13-km trek stretch en route to the holy cave shrine, causing stink in the area, will now be converted into fuel pellets and replace the liquefied petroleum gas for cooking and heating. The board has come up with the first-ever mule dung-based biogas plant near the town. The plant is currently on trial run and ready to be commissioned.

Around 3000 homes in 49 villages of Sindh Province have been energised so far through use of solar energy under Rural Electrification Programme.

A PC-I for electrification of 300 villages of Balochistan have been approved and will be executed on availability of funds under the programme launched Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) for remote areas in the country.

An official source on Sunday said the Board, mandated to facilitate private sector to develop Alternative and Renewable Energy (ARE) including wind, solar, waste to energy, hydro etc.

Many protests, agitations and petitions later, the residents of Sukhdev Vihar – one of the most densely-populated residential colonies located next to the Okhla-Timarpur waste-to-energy incinerator – have a unique proposition for Delhi environment officials and politicians: “Come spend a day at our homes”.

“Every single environment official and politician claims that all is well at Sukhdev Vihar. How can they certify this when the residents here have consistently been telling them about the pollution levels because of the plant, the bio-medical waste incinerator and the compost plant. Together these plants have polluted the ground water, poisoned the air and forced us to live with constant noise pollution,” says Asha Arora, an area resident.

NEW DELHI: For the next three months, the Delhi environment department and Delhi Pollution Control Board (DPCC) will intensively monitor operation of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant. Reacting to a TOI report about possible emissions from the plant since it became functional on January 3, the environment secretary visited the area on Sunday and said that while everything seemed to be in order at present, the government would keep a close watch on the plant as work is gradually scaled up in the next few months.

Despite sustained public protests and lawsuits against the Timarpur-Okhla waste-to-energy incinerator in Sukhdev Vihar, the beginning of trial runs this January 2 has invited the ire of the residents of this densely populated area.

“The incinerator is located in a residential area which is surrounded by university, schools, hospitals and a bird sanctuary. It is huge health and environmental hazard and the residents have been protesting for a long time. But it seems that the Delhi Government has turned a deaf ear to the protest and plea of the over one million people who will be adversely affected by the plant.

Asian Development Bank will provide Rs 4.5 billion as soft loan for "Waste to Energy Project" of Capital Development Authority.

Total project cost is estimated at Rs six billion. During a press conference, Chairman CDA Engr. Farkhand Iqbal said that ADB will provide 75 percent financing to this project, while CDA will generate the 25 percent by cutting its non-development budget.

He said that PC-1 of this project has been sent to the Cabinet for approval and soon after receiving green signal from the Cabinet ADB would start disbursing the amount pledged for this project.