A red-faced Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now instituted an inquiry into IL&FS Environment’s over-estimation of carbon credits that the scientifically-closed Gorai dumping ground could produce. In three years till June 2012, IL&FS had estimated that the solid waste management project at Gorai would generate 3,00,235 CER (Certified Emission Reduction) units, but only 14,477 units were received.

CERs are units issued by the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board for emission reduction and can be traded in the international market. In 2009, based on IL&FS estimates, the BMC took an advance payment of Rs 24.5 crore from Asian Development Bank (ADB) to sell 4.3 lakh CER units over a five-year period.