IIT-IIM alumni turn Guwahati waste into power

GUWAHATI: A group of four-member IIT and IIM alumni team have transformed Guwahati Municipal Corporation’s (GMC) goal of generating power from organic municipal wastes into a reality.
When Guwahati Development Department (GDD) minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya inaugurated the northeast’s first biomethanation plant, installed at Beelpar in Chatribari area of Guwahati here on Thursday, Guwahati lad Madhurjya Das was on cloud nine. An IIT-Guwahati graduate in mechanical engineering, also an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, Madhurjya, who led the execution of the project from the front said their untiring efforts to offer green energy by making the gateway to the northeast garbage-free has paid off.With 5,000 kilos of segregated organic waste per day as input, the plant will generate 800 units of electricity and 450 kilos of manure a day.
“I have been able to contribute to my home city and effort will be on to keep guwahati at par with cleanest cities in India. The most satisfying was that I, with my team members, could do something visible for the city which gave me the identity,” said Madhurjya, who hails from Guwahati.
Soon after completing MBA from IIM Bangalore, Madhurjya had applied his skills in banking and financial services for a few years. But he could not apply his capabilities in mechanical engineering at the same time, which was his first choice in IIT-Guwahati. Now, being the director of GPS Renewables, which had been roped in by GMC for the plant, Madhurjya is happy to apply his experience in financial services as well as expertise in mechanical engineering to make the city clean by adopting green energy.
GPS Renewables director Das said that they have patented the technology used in the plant. The same technology is in use in some other plants that have been installed by the company outside northeast.
GMC has engaged GPS Renewables for installation of the Biomethanation plant at Beelpar with a capacity of 5 TPD to generate energy from segregated (organic) municipal solid waste. Biomethanation is the anaerobic digestion of biodegradable organic waste in an enclosed space under controlled conditions of temperature, moisture, pH etc.