the municipal corporation of Delhi's satellite city Faridabad embarked on a project that may well be one of the first of its kind in the country. The corporation has privatised collection and disposal of garbage, which will be converted into dry compost. About 6.5 hectares of land has been allotted for the project. The collection of waste will commence in October, while the processing is scheduled to start by the end of 1999, when the plant and the machinery would have been set up.

The project has been taken up by the Martel group of Delhi, which has entered into an agreement on technical collaboration with an environmental engineering giant in the US. Martel is involved in software, financial consultancy and international trading. Martel claims that it will be executing the project at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore, while a comparable project would cost Rs 6-10 crore.