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Sunday, August 7, 2011

India may alter norms for carrying non washed coal

Sun,Aug07, 2011

BS reported that washing of coal within the state, which snowballed into a major issue with the Orissa government complaining about bearing the burden of pollution may deepen further as the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest is planning to reduce the distance of carrying the coal having more than 34% ash content to the power plant from 1000 kilometres to 500 kilometres from the pit-head.

MoEF earlier notification dated September 19 1997 had stipulated that power plants which are more than a thousand kilometres away from the pit head are required use coal having less than 34%t ash content.

Mr Tishyarakshit Chatterjee Secretary of MoEF said the Centre is mulling to reduce this distance from 1000 kilometres to 500 kilometres and to have coal washeries within 200 kilometres to 300 kilometres of the pit head so as to reduce the cost of transportation towards carrying ashes and minimize the fly ash pollution threat in the periphery of the plant site.

A number of new thermal plants are lined up for implementation by Independent Power Producers which will push the aggregate power generation in the state to about 45000 MW in the next 8 to 9 years. These plants are expected to generate 100 million tonnes of fly ash per annum.

Hence, such plans of MoEF on the reduction of distance for carrying the non-washed coal will compel the IPPs to set up washeries that will further precipitate the pollution problems in the state.

(Sourced from Business Standard)

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