Dispute over Gurugram waste: Former CJI to be arbitrator

The Punjab and Haryana high court has appointed former Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit as the sole arbitrator to settle a dispute between solid waste management concessionaire Ecogreen and the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday.

The dispute stems from an agreement signed in 2017 between the Haryana urban local bodies (ULB) department, the municipal corporations of Gurugram and Faridabad, and Ecogreen for solid waste management, and to set up a waste-to-energy (WtE) plant at Bandhwari at a cost of ₹330 crore.

According to MCG, when the corporation instructed the concessionaire to manage the disposal of accumulated waste, the company claimed that it was not their responsibility. This led to a dispute that escalated to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2018, said officials.

Ecogreen, however, said that MCG failed to provide land for the WtE plant, and adequately transfer stations and material recovery facilities to them.

MCG joint commissioner Naresh Kumar said the dispute escalated as they have issued at least five notices to the concessionaire for the recovery of ₹129.2 crore. “The legacy waste processing at the landfill site in Bandhwari is being done at the risk and cost of Ecogreen as it was the company’s responsibility as per the agreement it had signed. They were responsible for processing and they denied due to which we had to issue tenders and engage private companies,” he said.

He further said that they had asked the concessionaire to deposit the dues as they were compelled to get the work of processing legacy waste at the concessionaire’s risk and cost because of failure at their end. “The independent assessment of the bioremediation of the legacy waste carried out by IIT Roorkee at a cost of ₹7 lakh, and another assessment done by IIT Guwahati and a consultancy amounting to ₹24.6 lakh, has also been added to the recovery amount. We have also shifted refuse-derived fuel and leachate at the risk and cost of Ecogreen,” said Kumar.

The joint commissioner also alleged that the concessionaire should have achieved 100% waste segregation at source within six months of signing the agreement. “The segregation level achieved so far, however, is just 40%,” he said.

Ecogreen, meanwhile, said the matter is under arbitration at the high court, so MCG cannot take a decision on its own. “The matter is under HC’s judicial purview, since arbitrator has been appointed to settle the issue, let us wait for his decision. We have full confidence in our country’s judiciary. We are demanding the outstanding amount from MCG so that the work can be smoothly carried out. There is no mention of the risk and cost settlement in this matter anywhere in the agrement. We are going to file a reply to the notice soon. The civic body cannot exercise its authority when the matter is already under arbitration,” said Nagarjuna Reddy, chief operating officer, Ecogreen Energy.

Responding to the allegations on waste segregation, an Ecogreen spokesperson said, “MCG failed to encourage residents to pay us user charges, which has hit our business and we were unable to pay salaries to our team and workers.”