FLY ASH MANAGEMENT AND UTILISATION MISSION Flashcards
Why in news?
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) directed the constitution of a ‘Fly Ash Management and Utilisation Mission’ in its order dated January 18, 2022. The Mission’s primary goal will be to ‘coordinate and monitor issues relating to the handling and disposal of fly ash and associated issues.’
The Mission is to be jointly headed by the secretaries, of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Union Ministry of Coal and Power and the chief secretaries of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
The NGT’s order comes after at least eight cases where remedial action and relief were sought from the Principal Bench against violations by coal thermal power plants.
These cases dealt with:
The mandate for scientific management and utilisation of fly ash.
The draining of industrial effluents and fly ash in the Rihand Reservoir.
The breach in the fly ash pond of the Sasan Ultra Mega Power Plant resulting in the deaths of six persons including an eight-year-old boy washed away in fly ash slurry.
The serious gaps in storing of fly ash in ponds and dykes and associated failure to prevent unintentional and undesirable emissions from it.
What is fly ash?
Fly ash is an unwanted unburnt residue of coal combustion in a coal thermal power plant. It is emitted along with flue gases during the burning of coal in a furnace and collected using the electrostatic precipitators.
The fly ash collected with the help of precipitators is converted into a wet slurry to minimise fugitive dust emissions. It is then transported to the scientifically designed ash ponds through slurry pipes lines.
Gross under-utilisation of this by-product over the years has led to the accumulation of 1,670 million tonnes of fly ash according to the Summary of Ash Generation and Utilisation during 2020-2021 by the Joint Committee earlier constituted by the NGT.
NGT
TheNational Green Tribunal Act, 2010is an Act of theParliament of Indiawhich enables the creation of a special tribunal to handle the expeditious disposal of the cases pertaining toenvironmental issues.
The five regional benches are atNew Delhi(North),Pune(West),Bhopal(Central),Chennai(South) andKolkata(East). Each Bench has a specified geographical jurisdiction in a region. Further, a mechanism for circuit benches is also available. For example, the Southern Zone bench, which is based in Chennai, can decide to have sittings in other places like Bangalore or Hyderabad. but National green tribunal act 2010 The Chairperson of the NGT is a retired Judge of the Supreme Court, headquartered in New Delhi. On 18 October 2010, JusticeLokeshwar Singh Pantabecame its first Chairman. Retired justice Adarsh Kumar Goel is the incumbent chairman.
Fly ash notification 2021
Fly Ash Notification 2021 was issued under theEnvironment (Protection) Act 1986.
Prohibiting dumping and disposal of fly ash discharged from coal or lignite based thermal power plants on land or into water bodies, theCentre has made it mandatory for such plants to ensure 100% utilization of ash in an eco-friendly manner,and introduced for the first time a penalty regime for non-compliance based on ‘polluter pays’ principle.
Under new rules,the non-compliant power plants will be imposed with an environmental compensationof Rs 1,000 per tonne on unutilised ash during the end of every financial year.
The amount, collected by theCentral Pollution Control Board (CPCB)from the thermal power plants,will be used towards the safe disposal of the unutilised ash. It may also be utilised for advancing research on use of ash including ash based products.
In cases where fly ash is being used in various activities,power plants will have to deliver fly ash at project sites free of cost.
Thepower plant may, however, charge for ash cost and transportation as per mutually agreed terms,in case it is able to dispose of the ash through other means.
The new fly ash notification of December 2021, has madeprovision for the ‘enforcement, monitoring, audit and reporting’ of the progress of fly ash utilisation and implementationby coal thermal power plants and user agencies.
The Notificationholds the CPCB and State Pollution Control Boards (SPCB) / Pollution Control Committees (PCC) responsiblefor monitoring the effective implementation of mandates under it.
However, along with these statutory regulators,the Mission also extends the responsibility of fly ash management to the chief secretaries of the states.
TheNotification mandates the individual thermal power plant to upload monthly informationregarding ash generation and utilisation on its web portal.
