Lucknow, Mar 23 (IANS): Construction debris in Lucknow will now be put to good use now with the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) set to manufacture inter-locking tiles from recycled construction debris waste. The project is expected to take off within a week.

Pankaj Bhushan, environment engineer at LMC, said, "We are trying to start the project before Holi. At first, we will produce interlocking bricks and later we will try to produce tiles and marbles. Recycling will help protect the environment."

The construction of the building for the manufacturing plant, located near SGPGI, is complete while the procurement of machines from an Ahmedabad-based company is underway. These machines have the capacity to produce 800-1000 inter-locking tiles from 100 metric tonnes of construction debris in a month.

The debris will be procured from the government and private construction projects in the city. Collection of debris from private companies will be chargeable while it will be free for the government agencies.

The manufactured tiles will be used by the LMC for its own projects and will also be sold in the open market. Various government and private agencies will also have the option to buy these tiles directly from the LMC.

The tile manufacturing plant, which will cost around Rs 55 lakh, will be run on PPP (public-private partnership) model in which LMC will build the plant and then hand it over to a private company for running it.

The revenues earned through the sales will be shared between the LMC and the private player.