Half of India's coal power plants don't comply by 'limits' set on water use: RTI reply

By Shripad Dharmadhikary, Sehr Raheja*
It is almost a month since the normal onset date of the monsoon, and headlines have been dominated by situation of drought and water scarcity over large areas of the country. Under the circumstances, it is a matter of serious concern that many thermal power plants – heavy water guzzlers and the largest industrial user of water – are failing to comply with the legally binding limits on how much water they are allowed to use.
This situation has been revealed by information obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) by Manthan Adhyayan Kendra.
Coal based thermal power plants (TPPs) consume vast quantities of accounting for close to 70% of all water used for industrial purposes in India. Given this, thermal power plants can cause significant water stress in the local area, especially if they are present in clusters.
In December 2015, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) brought out a notification that set limits for the first time on how much water a thermal power plant can use per unit of electricity generated, called “specific water consumption”.
These regulations mandated that TPPs set up before January 1, 2017 should not use more than 3.5 Cubic Meters / MWh of water (equivalent to 3.5 litres of water per unit (KWh) of electricity generated) and those built after the date cannot exceed 3 Cubic meters/MWh. Power plants using sea water are exempted from this, and all plants had to meet the norms within two years of the notification, that is, by December 2017.
The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) had noted in a report in 2012 that TPPs were consuming 5-7 Cubic Meters/ MWh of water. Every reduction of 0.5 Cubic meters/MWh in the specific consumption of a 1000 MW plant will save enough water in a year to irrigate 700 ha of land; or provide drinking and domestic use water to 68,000 people for an entire year. Thus, the cutting down of water consumption by TPPs has huge benefits for the local areas especially in water stressed areas.

Only 51% plants meet regulations

We could obtain compliance status (self-reported) for thermal power plants or units from 12 states. Just about 51% of the plants were found to be in compliance with the regulations.
Out of the total 156 plants/units for which we could obtain the status, 66 claimed that they complied with the water consumption limits, while 30 admitted that they were non-compliant. For another 46 plants, either data was not available, or replies were ambiguous or the plants were closed. As other 14 plants were using sea water, they are exempted from the regulations.
What is equally important is that this compliance status is self-reported status by the various power plants. These figures or status have not been verified either by the state pollution control boards (SPCBs) or any other independent agencies.
These 156 plants included a number of smaller, captive power plants. If we consider only the major power plants (those being monitored by the Central Electricity Authority in its Daily Generation Report or DGR list), then the number of plants for which we could get information was only 75, and in this 34 plants were compliant with the norms and 22 were not.

Thermal power plants: Status of compliance to water consumption norm

Issues of concern with compliance information

There are other serious issues of concern with the compliance data and information we received under the RTI applications.
Self-reporting, no independent verification: The status of compliance with the regulations of water consumption is entirely self-reported by the respective power plants with no verification from any credible, independent agency.
Some states gave no information, most did not give for all power plants: Out of RTI applications filed with 15 states, we did not get information for even one TPP from three states – Bengal, Karnataka and Rajasthan. Most states did not give information about all the TPPs in the states, leading us to wonder whether the states are actually monitoring compliance by all the plants or just passively collecting information from whichever plant submits it, and ignoring others.
No uniform format for information given: There was no uniform format in which the information was provided to us in spite of the fact that there is a prescribed standard format for reporting compliance with the regulations.
Information given is old in many cases: In many cases, the information provided to us was several months old, or even from earlier years, raising the question as to whether the collection of compliance information is being done on a regular basis.

There was also inadequate, evasive or impossible to understand information.

Lack of seriousness in PCBs to ensure implementation of norms

Neither the MoEFCC, nor the state pollution control boards (SPCBs) which are responsible for monitoring the compliance with regulations, seem to be serious about enforcing the norms.
The compliance monitoring figures are not in public domain. The only action that SPCBs seem to be taking in cases of non-compliance is to write to the plants to comply.
Issues of concern with compliance information There are other serious issues of concern with the compliance data and information we received under the RTI applications.
Futher, CPCB / MoEFCC have tried to allow the thermal power plants an open ended extension of time period to meet the standards in a manner that is legally questionable. Just as the deadline to meet the norms ended on December 7, 2017, the CPCB wrote, on December 11 2017, to all power plants, stating among other things that “the time line for compliance of water consumption limit shall also be finalised in consultation of plants.”
This is not only a patent conflict of interest situation but provides an ideal opportunity for rent seeking. Not only that, the time limit for meeting the norms is open-ended, but also there is no time period given by which the deadline has to be set. This effectively makes it an open ended exemption to the plants, making the regulation meaningless.

Given this, the CPCB letter’s legality is questionable. As such, the legality of these directions is also being questioned by lawyers, as they claim that the powers delegated to CPCB cannot be used to extend deadline but only to ensure compliance.

Recommendations

All SPCBs and the CPCB must ensure that all TPPs meet the water consumption norms given in the Dec 2015 Notification with immediate effect, as the deadline has long passed.
Without prejudice to (1) above, where new deadlines are needed, the respective SPCBs must immediately set them and make them public. In any case, these deadlines should not be beyond Sept 2019.
All SPCBs should collect the data related to compliance with these water consumption norms in a regular manner.
Such data should be in the uniform, prescribed format for all TPPs no matter in which state.
All this data along with the compliance status should be put out suo moto in public domain.
Compliance can be self-reported, but verification by independent credible agencies and the SPCBs is a must.
SPCBs should initiate action against those not meeting regulations, and put that in public domain so that local communities can follow up.

---
*Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, Pune. This is the summary of the paper "Wide-spread Non-Compliance as Thermal Power Plants don’t Meet Water Use Norms"

Comments

A tale of horror and fraud: Profits in trillions of dollars for vaccine manufacturers?

By Aruna Rodrigues* John Leake is a best-selling and “experienced non-fiction, true crime author”. Having just read what must be described as an extraordinary ‘telling’ of the Covid-19 saga, his book “The Courage to Face Covid-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex”, co-authored with Peter A McCullough, MD, MPH, is the narration of true crime on a scale that could top the list in the history of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’. The book chronicles the unique role of national governments across the world and their health agencies, led by the USA and WHO, which followed an agenda that led to completely avoidable fatalities numbering several million. The question is why? The usual culprits are money and power. But to ascribe cause to these two is woefully insufficient. The sheer magnitude of the ‘dark agenda’ – coordinated and played out by governments, health agencies, the medical establishment (hospitals, doctors and chemists) and the massive a

You promised 50 lakh houses, give us one: Ahmedabad migrant women's plea to Modi

Women display letters containing rakhi for PM By Hirabhai Solanki, Bhartiben Dantani, Ramesh Shrivastav* Poor labouring families, including seasonal or long-term migrants of nearly 15 squatter settlements -- working as construction and casual workers and petty vendors, providing cheap but critically important labour for Ahmedabad city, living under plastic sheetings -- have reminded the Gujarat and Central Governments about the promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of building 50 lakh dwellings, wherein every pavement dweller and homeless would be given a decent home by the end of 2022. Holding a meeting in Ahmedabad under the aegis of the Majur Adhikaar Manch, they also referred to the appeal of the Prime Minister to poor and labouring women, seeking his support as brother by sending rakhis to protect their humble basti dwellings and provide them with decent housing, which is secure for them and their families. So far, about 300 women have posted rakhis to the Prime Ministe

A countdown to disaster: Breach in fly-ash bunds of Nagpur's thermal power plants

Fly-ash dyke, Koradi thermal power plant By Dhwani Shah, Deepmala Patel* Last month the residents of several villages of Nagpur district woke up to the nightmare of being inundated with fly-ash. Located in the north of Nagpur city are Koradi and Khaparkheda thermal power stations which have their ash dykes in the vicinity. On July 10, 2022 at 3 am, the ash dyke of the Khaparkheda thermal power station broke, leading to ash contaminating the Kanhan river. Though the authorities claimed to have acted quickly and the fly ash dumping in the river was stopped, the claim stood to be misleading and false. Even today, the Kanhan river continues to be polluted with fly-ash, and the water supply to the city is affected. Not only did ash dyke of the Khaparkheda power station break, on July 16, 2022, the ash bund of the Koradi thermal power plant also broke. Fly-ash and water stored in the dyke gushed downstream to six villages -- drowning houses, water bodies and farmlands. With such large-

Golwalkar's views on tricolour, martyrs, minorities, caste as per RSS archives

By Shamsul Islam* First time in the history of independent India, the in-charge minister of the Cultural Ministry in the current Modi government, Prahlad Singh Patel, has glorified MS Golwalkar, second supremo of the RSS and the most prominent ideologue of the RSS till date, on his birth anniversary, February 19. In a tweet he wrote : “Remembering a great thinker, scholar, and remarkable leader #MSGolwalkar on his birth anniversary. His thoughts will remain a source of inspiration & continue to guide generations.”

RSS, Sangh Parivar consider tricolour as "state flag" and not "national flag"

By Teesta Setalvad* Today, when the nation has been independent for 67 years, the Sangh Parivar is set to launch ‘Tiranga yatras’ and Satyagrahas to defend the honour of the flag and the nation. Yet when the Indian people were involved in the decades-long struggle for freedom against British imperialism, the RSS was conspicuous by its absence in the struggle. When thousands of people faced lathis, bullets and jail sentences for hoisting the tiranga and participated all over the country in satyagraha during the Civil Disobedience and Quit India movements against the British Raj, the Sangh publicly took the stand that it would not take part in the movement and seldom missed the opportunity of assuring the British rulers that they would keep to the right side of colonial law and avoid any clash with the authorities. Of course the reason given for this was that the Sangh was secretly strengthening itself and would take on British imperialism only when it was strong enough to do so! A simil

'Grossly inadequate': NREGA allocation 0.29% of GDP, World Bank recommended 1.6%

By Rajiv Shah A civil society tracker, seeking to periodically analyse the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), has said that NREGA budgetary allocation is only 0.29% of GDP and 1.85% of the total government expenditure of the financial year 2022-23, which is grossly inadequate. Thus, “As per estimates of researchers of the World Bank, for NREGA to run robustly, its allocation must at least be 1.6% of the GDP.” Prepared by the People’s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG), a group of activists, academics and members of people’s organizations, who came together to advocate for NREGA in 2004 in order to catalyse discussion and strengthen the top Government of India rural jobs guarantee scheme, the tracker states, the NREGA budget as percentage of the total government expenditure has also decreased -- it stands at 1.85% for FY 2022-23, just about half the level in FY 2020-21 (3.65%). The tracker, titled “Meagre Funds and Unlawfully Low Wages: How

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Since 2015 Govt of India didn't allocate single rupee to Gujarat for RTI training, awareness

By Pankti Jog* The Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India (GoI) has allocated Rs 8.7 crore to Maharashtra for conducting Right to Information (RTI) training and awareness between 2015 to 2022. Of this, Rs 5.9 crore has gone to the Maharashtra State Training Institute, YASHADA, and Rs 3.01 crore have gone to the State Information Commission, Maharashtra. Gujarat, on the other hand, has not received even a single rupee over the last seven years for RTI programmes. Even Gujarat’s State Information Commission too has not not received any funds since 2005. RTI is one of the effective tools to bring transparency and accountability in the administration, thus improve governance. If citizens are aware, they would participate in a more meaningful manner in governance. They would effectively monitor planning and expenses of public programmes. Indeed, it is necessary that RTI is taken to every citizen, for which the government needs to conduct awareness drives and training

Anti-untouchability brass coin yatra to Delhi getting 'overwhelming' response: Macwan

By Our Representative Gujarat’s top Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, who is currently leading a week-long procession to Delhi carrying a 1,111 kg brass coin with the pointed question embossed on it, “Will the 1947 dream of untouchability free India be a reality in 2047?”, has reiterated that the removal of untouchability in India is Dalits’ primary concern, and not opposition to the new Parliament building. The march began in Ahmedabad on August 1 at 8:00 am amidst refusal of the Gujarat police a day earlier refusing to give the permission for the procession, which involves a small truck carrying the huge brass coin, another one with an Ambedkar statue, two trucks full of about 25 lakh one rupee coins donated by Dalits across India, and six buses with 300 Dalit activists. The brass coin has the image of BR Ambedkar on one side, and of Lord Buddha, on the other. Starting at the Dalit Shakti Kendra (DSK), founded by Macwan to provide technical-cum-empowerment training to the underpriv

Quit India stir: What archives say on Hindutva leaders 'colluding' with British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* On the eve of 80th anniversary of the glorious Quit India Movement 1942 [QIM], we must evaluate the anti-national role of the Hindutva flag-bearers (who shamelessly claim to be the original nationalists) in India's anti-colonial freedom struggle. QIM also known as ‘August Kranti' (August Revolution) was a nation-wide Civil Disobedience Movement for which a call was given on August 7, 1942 by the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee. It was to begin on August 9 as per Gandhi's call to ‘Do or Die’ in his Quit India speech delivered in Mumbai at the Gowalia Tank Maidan (renamed as August Kranti Maidan) on August 8. Since then August 9 is celebrated as August Kranti Divas. The British swiftly responded with mass detentions on August 8th itself. The contemporary official documents confirm that over 100,000 arrests were made which included the total top leadership of Congress including Gandhi, mass fines were levied and demonstrators were subjecte

Search This Blog