Meeting with Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board

CSE realized that a plant-level assessment would be required to gauge the current status of implementation of emission control technologies and understand the bottlenecks in achieving compliance. This in turn could help various stakeholders in different ways:

1. It can assist senior management to know actual emissions from their plants and subsequently identify relevant technology options
2. Stakeholders can recognize suitable road-maps and timelines for swift implementation
3. This can help environment regulators at the state and central level to devise informed, credible monitoring plans; and
4. It can benefit the central government with policy ideas to push for the implementation of norms. 

With these objectives in mind, CSE decided to work with select states and power companies and assess their readiness for compliance with the 2015 norms. MP state has a significant capacity of coal based thermal power plants installed and commissioned across the state, with a mixture of pithead stations and rake dependent power stations. It also houses Singrauli zone, which is one of the largest power generation clusters in India, housing more than 8,000 MW of capacity at a single place. Efforts to control pollution in this state will have a major impact in the national level push for implementation of the environmental norms for thermal power stations. Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (MPPCB) has demonstrated good leadership and demonstrable track record of good environmental management. Identifying steps to be undertaken to ensure implementation can help MPPCB maintain its lead compared to other states in this area. Assessment of the state also offered learning’s for other states with significant thermal power capacity.