During the tenure of Mayor Prashanta Chatterjee in 1994, the civic body had signed an agreement with Excel Industries Pvt Ltd, Mumbai. According to the agreement, 30 acres of land was leased out to the company that later sub-leased the land to Eastern Organic Fertilizer Pvt Ltd after taking permission from the KMC.

The plant was inaugurated in 2000 during the tenure of Mayor Subrata Mukherjee. Initially, the plant was running smoothly but soon it started facing operational problems since it was not receiving soft garbage, which the civic body was required to supply under the 1994 agreement.

The civic authorities, however, said the company has violated two major clauses of the agreement.

Arun Sarkar, Chief Municipal Engineer( Solid Waste Management Department), said: “Initially, the company told us that the plant would consume 700 metric tonnes of garbage for making compost. Further, the company is required to give us a certain amount of revenue.”

He alleged, “Since its set up in 2000, the company has been defaulting on revenue. Moreover, it never took 700 metric tons of waste.”

For manufacturing compost, a plant needs either food-waste or organic waste as raw material. The company officials had asked the KMC to supply flower, fruit and vegetable waste. The company’s counsel Jayanta Mitro said: “According to the contract, the KMC is supposed to supply soft waste but it provided concrete waste that is not suited for making compost.”

He refuted the charges of not paying the revenue. “The waste material damaged the company’s machines. Even then we never defaulted on revenue. We even tried to collect the suitable waste from outside to keep the plant functional but the civic body did not let us do that and forced us to shut down the plant,” said Mitro.

He claimed that the KMC had broken the agreement.

Officials of the solid waste management department, however, have a different take. “We do not have waste segregation system. So the company has to accept the waste that we supply,” said an official.

A senior civic official admitted that the KMC had failed to fulfill its obligations under the contract. “The KMC did not provide the waste material. Consequently, the company was not able to extract compost from the waste that consists of bricks, cement and other concrete pieces,” he added.

Following the non-availability of raw material, the compost plant was shut down in 2004.

The company initiated legal proceedings after all efforts of mutual agreement with the KMC had failed. A hearing in the case is going on in the High Court.