Even as plans get underway to solve Mumbai’s burgeoning garbage disposal problem — 8,000 tonnes per day and set to rise further — by developing a common landfill for the entire metropolitan region, experts at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) are simultaneously tackling the problem of transporting such large quantities of waste to the disposal site. To that end, the MMRDA is currently exploring the possibility of either using the existing railway network or laying a dedicated Metro Rail line for the purpose.

The MMRDA has already shortlisted six sites in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) that could be developed into landfill sites, each to be used by a minimum of two municipal bodies. These will solve the challenge of garbage disposal in the fast-developing urban agglomeration for the next 50 years, it is expected.

M R Shah, principal advisor for the Common Region Landfill Site (CRLS) project, said: “We’re currently working on a feasibility study to decide the mode of transport that can be used to transport the garbage from the cities and the existing dumping grounds to the proposed landfill sites in the MMR. The options we’re exploring are using the road network or the existing suburban rail network and also a possibility of a dedicated Metro rail line.”

According to Shah, a former solid waste management chief engineer with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the feasibility study is being done by a group of solid waste management experts with assistance from officials of the Konkan Railway. He said that extensions from the existing rail network could be added up to some sites, which would then be operationalised in the region.

Shah informed that sites that have been shortlisted include one at Bhiwandi on Mumbai-Nashik highway, Kalyan Road near Shilphata, at Taloja Industrial Estate, at Panvel on Mumbai-Pune Expressway, near Ambernath-Ulhasnagar and one near Airoli bridge on the Eastern Express Highway.

Interestingly, a train that transported waste from the city to the Deonar dumping ground used to operate on the erstwhile Great Indian Peninsula Railway for nearly half a century from the mid-1920s. “This garbage train was owned by the Bombay Municipality and used to be operated till 1976,” recalled G D Patwardhan, a city-based railway historian. “It used to be operated from Mahalaxmi to Kurla and then as an extension to Deonar via Elphinstone Road and Parel,” Patwardhan added. Similar trains were also operated in upper India earlier, but currently no such trains are being operated in the country.

The historian, however, says he has his doubts whether such a train, if introduced now, would work. “That train had one trip per day in the afternoon. I doubt if something of this sort can work now — issues like the stink and the filth on the tracks would increase,” he stated.

With the MMR producing about 11,000 tonnes of garbage every day, for the experts, the idea is to find a “cost-effective” option to transport garbage. “We’ll explore the three options, weigh the pros and cons of each and put forward a report to the Authority to take a decision. We’re ambitious to know if a separate metro rail line could be laid, which would be economically viable for a longer period,” said Shah.