'Interest of polluters prevails more than public health in the country'

KOLKATA: The recent extension of the deadline for installing pollution control technologies for coal-based power stations by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) for the third time has raised questions over Centre's seriousness in tackling pollution from power plants.

The experts opined that Centre's decision indicated that interest of polluters prevailed in the country more than public health.

They also opined that the move had exposed Centre's failure in holding polluting power plants accountable, experts opined.

The latest notification for extension, issued on September 5, has extended the deadline until 2027 for retiring units and 2026 for non-retiring units. Noted environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta, said: "The fact that another extension has been given clearly shows that the emission norms will never be implemented. Unfortunately, the Environment Ministry has become an advisory ministry rather than a regulatory ministry. Rather than taking punitive action against the violators, all that it is doing is succumbing to the dictates of other ministries. It is clear that India's National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) target of reduction of air pollution by 2024 by 30 to 40 per cent will never be achieved given the repeated leeway the government is giving to violators."

Sunil Dahiya, analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), said that these extensions in the implementation of emissions norms, even without dilution, would technically mean that most of the operational power stations today would not need to install any pollution-control equipment.

He maintained that the emissions norms were put in place, recognising the coal-based power plants, as a major factor contributing to air pollution and resulting mortality. "These extensions in implementation show that the interest of polluters prevails more than public health in India," he said.

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.

As of February 2021, only about 68.7 gigawatt (GW) of the total installed capacity of 169.7GW, had been awarded bids for installing FGD, which is the process of removing sulphur compounds from the exhaust emissions of fossil-fuelled power stations.

Only 2.2 GW capacity power plants had by then installed FGDs since the announcement of emission standards in 2015.