The Hindu : New Delhi News : Paper re-cycling plant at Khan Market hits roadblock

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Monday, Jan 28, 2008
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New Delhi

Paper re-cycling plant at Khan Market hits roadblock

Manisha Jha

‘Our idea is to collect all waste paper in the market and re-cycle it into handmade paper bags’
The civic body has cited high costs for not allotting land to the Market Association

NEW DELHI: The Khan Market Traders’ Association proposal to set up a paper re-cycling plant near the market has been lying in the pipeline with the New Delhi Municipal Council for the past three months after receiving the initial go-ahead.

The delay stems from the civic body’s reluctance to allot land to the Association given the prime location and the high market value of the land.

According to the proposal, the Association had offered an amount of Rs.8 lakh towards the cost of the plant construction and installation of machinery and had demanded a plot of about 1,000 sq feet from NDMC for the purpose.

The Khan Market Traders’ Association president, Sanjeev Mehra, said: “Our idea was to collect all waste paper in the market and re-cycle it into handmade paper bags to be handed out to customers or be re-used as stationary items in shops. This would not only generate employment, but also be good for the environment as fresh paper would not be wasted on handbags and those shopkeepers using polythene bags would also switch over to paper bags.”

Machines

“Our demand was for a ground floor and a first floor in order to set up four machines including a shredder, pulper, mixer and paper producing machine. We had also put forth suggestions for allotting us land either near Barat Ghar adjoining Gopal Mandir on Prithviraj Road or behind Prithviraj Market. However, it has been almost three months since we submitted the proposal to NDMC, but still nothing has been done,” he added.

Meanwhile, the civic body cited high costs for not allotting land to the Association. An NDMC official said: “Given that the cost of even one square metre of space around Khan Market is around Rs.5 lakh, the demand for allotting 1,000 square feet to the Association would cost us an exorbitant Rs.50 crore which makes the project very costly and unviable for us.”

At present, the market consisting 156 shops that generate waste paper of around 75 to 100 kg daily and relies on daily garbage disposal to take care of paper waste.

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