MoEF fails to hold power plants accountable, extends timeline to implement air quality norms
| Date :09-Sep-2022 |
Staff Reporter
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) once again failed to hold polluting power plants accountable by extending timelines for implementation of air quality norms for the third time.
The Ministry, on Thursday, issued a notification in which it extended the timeline until 2027 for retiring units and 2026 for non-retiring units. The decision came into implementation after a series of dilution and delays in implementing emission standards for coal-based power stations.
The latest notification came into existence within 18 months of the previous notification. The latest notification further extends the implementation timeline for power plants within 10 km radius of Delhi-NCR and million-plus cities to December 31, 2024, from the earlier deadline of December 2022.
For power plants within 10 km radius of critically polluted areas, the deadline has been extended upto December 31, 2025, earlier which was December 31, 2023 deadline. For all other power plants across the country which had an earlier timeline of December 31, 2024, the new deadline stands at December 31, 2026.
Apart from this, all power plant units which have plans to retire before December 31, 2027, will now be exempted from installing flue gas desulphurisation (FGD), and instead, they will just have to submit an exemption request to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Central Electricity Authority (CEA) citing the grounds for retirement.
Meanwhile, this extension comes alongside two dilution granted for water and nitrogen oxide (NOx) norms in 2018 and 2020, respectively.
The country’s first emission norms for control of sulphur dioxide (SO2), NOx and mercury (Hg) from coal-fired power plants were notified in December 2015, giving a deadline of December 2017 to comply. Thermal power plants across the country, however, were given incremental time until 2022 to comply with emission standards as the deadline drew near in December 2017.
“With the latest notification, a further delay in implementation is awarded with another extension rather than fines or shutdowns. It means no new coal-based unit installed FGD in the last 18 months, and only 15 GW awarded the bids,” said Sunil Dahiya, Analyst, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
“MoEF&CC released an order in 2010 for installation of FGD in all thermal power plants compulsorily whereas the policy came in existence thereafter. After the order, Koradi Thermal Power Station floated tender for installation of FGD but till date the tender is not awarded,” Pratap Goswami, Sanghatan Mantri of Aam Aadmi Party and a petitioner of Koradi TPS case that is underway in NGT. “Extending timeline to set the accountability of power plants for pollution mitigation is showing the intention of government towards the environment and human health,” said Goswami.