See CSE’s factsheet and briefing paper on the subject Click here
New Delhi, April 7, 2021: Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has strongly criticised the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s (MoEF&CC) latest amendment to 2015 notification on stringent emission norms for India’s coal-based thermal power sector – the new amendment, says CSE, “will give these already polluting thermal power plants (TPPs) a license to pollute indefinitely”.
Norms to limit pollutants from TPPs were announced in 2015, and were expected to be adopted by 2017. But the industry managed to delay implementation to 2022. It is 2021 now: with just a few months to go before the deadline, a mere one-third of the plants have taken any serious steps to comply with the norms.
Says Sunita Narain, director general, CSE: “Instead of working to ensure implementation, the ministry has chosen to extend the deadline further, allowing a majority of the plants to pollute for another three to four years. However, extension is not the only matter to be worried about. What makes this a fatally flawed notification is that the deterrence provided in it for non-compliance actually gives the polluters a license to pollute.”
The amendment
TPPs are put in three categories – Category A includes TPPs in a 10-km radius of NCR or cities having a million-plus population as per the 2011 census; Category B includes TPPs in a 10-km radius of critically polluted areas and non-attainment cities; and the rest of the TPPs are in Category C. TPPs in Category A have to meet the deadline by 2022, those in Category B by 2023, and in Category C by 2024.
Old power stations are exempted from installing pollution control systems by submitting an undertaking to retire. Ideally, old plants in Category A are asked to retire by 2022 and the rest by 2025. Defaulting the deadlines attracts penalty.
But what makes the notification so flawed is the fact that it provides a penalty amount, which is much lower than what it would cost to install the pollution control equipment. CSE’s analysis shows that while installing the equipment for pollution control would cost between Rs 40-100 lakh/MW, the penalty that thermal power plants would have to pay to keep running without installing this equipment is roughly Rs 5-11 lakh/MW – this makes a complete mockery of the effort to control pollution.
“The new notification undermines all efforts to ‘clean’ up dirty coal power plants. It is clear that thermal power sector is a major contributor to India’s pollution challenge – from air to water – and this notification nullifies all the work that was being done to improve performance of the sector,” says Nivit Kumar Yadav, programme director, Industrial Pollution Unit, CSE.
CSE’s detailed analysis of the amendment reveals:
The deadline for 2022 for coal-based thermal power plants to meet the new standard was fixed by the Supreme Court. taking into account the limitations of thermal power plants and also their environmental and health impacts. The notification has not just extended the Supreme Court mandated deadlines, but has completed undermined the effort to clean up this sector and to secure the right to clean air. Coal TPPs are responsible for over 60 per cent of total industrial emissions of particulate matter; 45 per cent of SO2; 30 per cent of NOx; and more than 80 per cent of mercury emissions in the country.
CSE has put forth the concept of First-Run or preferential scheduling (see details Click here: that could serve as an incentive for stations which are moving to meet the new norms.
For more on this, contact Sukanya Nair of The CSE Media Resource Centre, sukanya.nair@cseindia.org, 8816818864
Factsheet and Briefing Paper | |
Report | |
Meeting Emission Norms | |
Media Clippings | |
New norms for thermal plants may dent India's emission targets: Experts hindustantimes | 12 APRIL 2021 |
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Env ministry’s new deadlines for thermal plants will give them license to pollute indefinitely: CSE outlookindia | 07 APRIL 2021 |
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CSE says environment ministry's latest amendment gives coal-based thermal power stations complete license to polluted ibgnews | 07 APRIL 2021 |
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