New Delhi: Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to environmental conservation, the central government has in the past 18 months twice extended deadlines for thermal power projects aimed at controlling gas emissions. toxic and harmful. Two days before the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, which is observed by the United Nations on September 7 each year to strengthen international cooperation in improving air quality and reducing pollution. air pollution, the Modi government scrapped the deadlines it set itself in March 2021.
The new deadlines – for reducing emissions of toxic sulfur oxides generated by the combustion of coal in thermal power plants – have been set through a notification to the Official Journal by the Union Department of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on September 5.
“In a country marked by high death rates from air pollution, the cost of inaction is high when it comes to non-enforcement of emission control standards on power plants in the world. coal. These emission standards were put in place after realizing that coal-fired power plants are a major contributor to air pollution. Failure to meet emission control deadlines results in higher mortality rates among the population living near thermal power plant projects. The many extensions provided by the central government to implement the emission control guidelines only goes to show that public health in India takes second place when it comes to protecting the interests of polluting thermal power plants,” said Sunil Dahiya, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent research organization.
In December 2015, the MoEFCC issued ultimatums to coal-fired power plants to reduce emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides. Through a notification, the ministry initially set a two-year deadline for all thermal power plants to meet the new emission standards. However, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), a statutory body in charge of controlling air pollution, extended this deadline by five years after most thermal power stations failed to meet the new standards in December 2017. Depending on their respective years of commissioning and installed capacities, different thermal power plant projects were then defined with different deadlines until December 2022 to meet emission standards.
However, before the expiration of the above deadline, the Ministry issued a new set of deadlines in March 2021 in which the power plants have been divided into three categories based on the location and area of the projects. With this notification, ‘non-retired’ as well as ‘retired’ units within a 10km radius of Delhi-NCR or cities with more than 1 million people were expected to meet emission control standards by December 2022. Power plants meeting these qualifications fell into the first category of projects.
The second category of projects included those located within 10 km of severely polluted areas or non-compliant cities. (The CPCB has identified some cities in India as Severely polluted areas based on their low scores on various environmental parameters. In the same way, Non-compliant cities are those that consistently fail to meet air quality standards as set out under the central government’s National Clean Air Program over a five-year period.) Non-reprocessed units were set at the deadline of December 2023, while retired units have been set for the deadline of December. 2025 in the second category. The third category of coal-fired power plants included those that did not fall into the two categories described above. Factories not retired from this category were given the December 2024 deadline, while factories that retired were given the December 2025 target.
Through the latest notification, the ministry has extended the deadline to December 2024 and December 2027, respectively, for non-reprocessed and reprocessed thermal power plants within 10 km of Delhi-NCR and in cities with populations over 1 million. Non-retired and retired units within 10 km of severely polluted areas or non-compliant cities were set as deadlines of December 2025 and December 2027, respectively. Similarly, non-shrinkable units and refractory units under the third category of thermal power plants have been set as deadlines of December 2026 and December 2027, respectively.
“Extensions in the implementation of emissions standards technically mean that most operating plants will never need to install equipment to control the emission of sulfur oxides. It is clear that India’s target of reducing air pollution by 30-40% by the end of 2024 under the National Clean Air Program will never be achieved given repeated room for maneuver that the central government leaves to offenders. With this extension, a clear message has been sent by central government to all power companies that they should not take environmental standards seriously,” said environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta.
In addition, all power plants due to be shut down before the end of December 2027 will no longer be required to meet regulations regarding sulfur oxide emission standards by submitting applications for exemption to the CPCB and the Central Electricity Authority. (ECA). In particular, the CEA, a statutory body which advises the State on all matters relating to policies and plans for the development of electrical systems, has never compiled a list of “retired” and “non-retired” thermal power projects in the country.
On the other hand, CEA data show that the compliance of thermal power plants with sulfur oxide emission standards, in terms of the installation of pollution control equipment such as flue gas desulphurization systems ( FGD), is very low in the country. To date, only 21 of the country’s 600 thermal power plants have installed FGD systems. data published by the CEA in September 2022. These are 15 units from the private sector and 6 units belonging to the central administration. It represents only 4.15% of the country’s total installed thermal capacity. None of the 222 thermal power plants belonging to the various state governments have installed FGD systems to date.
Experts have pointed to the fact that the deadline for adhering to sulfur oxide emission standards is continuously being pushed back even as the central government has allowed other coal blocks to open over the past two years and has given a record number of new environmental authorizations for the implementation of thermal projects.
However, a section of experts are also advocating alternative methods to reduce the pollution caused by the emission of sulfur oxides instead of sticking to FGD technology which is considered an expensive affair. “Locally produced coal does not contain large amounts of sulfur compared to imported coal. In recent years, the goal of the country’s thermal power sector has been to reduce dependence on imported coal. In this scenario, installing FGD equipment may not be worth the effort. Household coal, on the other hand, has a high percentage of ash content due to several impurities. Washing coal at the source of production could be an alternative that would reduce emissions and increase its calorific value,” Partha Sarathi Bhattacharya, former chairman of Coal India Limited, told NewsClick.
The MOEFCC has given leeway to coal-fired power plants, considered the main sources of air pollution, despite the fact that Modi has continuously launched programs aimed at preserving the environment, ecology and the fauna of the country. In June 2022, Modi launched a global initiative called Lifestyle for the Environment (LiFE), which is a movement for citizens to adopt an eco-friendly lifestyle. In September 2022, Modi also launched Cheetah Project for the reintroduction of felines, which were considered extinct about seven decades ago, in India.
Following a high-profile event to release eight cheetahs purchased from Namibia into Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh on its 72nd birthday on September 17, Modi tweeted, “I spent the day attending programs that deal with our economy, our society and the environment. I sincerely believe that when we work collectively in these areas, we will achieve our goal of sustainable and inclusive development. May we continue to work harder and harder in the times to come.
(The author is a freelance journalist. Opinions expressed are personal.)