Odisha requires about 3,000 MW of power in peak hours, but it has an ambitious plan to generate 75,000 MW, which is 25 times more, burning dirty coal. Most of these are to be generated by private companies for their own profit.
There is no cumulative impact assessment to know the devastating impact these power plants will have on the people and ecology. In fact, to push through industrialization, the Government ignores even minimum diligence that has to be taken before signing agreements. The Odisha State Pollution Control Board has to be more proactive against the polluting industries. The case of serial breaches in fly ash mount of the Hindalco Industries limited at Hirakud is a case in point.
After heavy rainfall on the August 4 last year when the 'temporary' wall of Hindalco's ash mount breached, the toxic fly ash gushed into the crop fields of farmers and to a canal of the Sambalpur distributary under the Hirakud command area. The canal covers 10,000 acres of farm land and paddy crop was standing on the fields at the time. In fact, a foot high of fly ash covered nearby crop fields, amounting to about 50 acres. A visit to the fly ash mount would make one believe that it was created to breach so that the company did not have to invest much in managing the fly ash but gets it flown through the canals, ultimately to pollute the river Mahanadi. Rainfall continued and the mount's temporary wall, stacked with sand bags as against the prescribed concrete wall, breached again on August 14.
This time, the breach was more severe and the farmers got highly agitated and knocked at the doors of the company, the administration and the OSPCB. Even before the issue had not been settled, the third breach occurred on August 16. And, in a few days later, it breached yet again. In fact, the situation has not much improved even as monsoon is all set hit the State by June second week.
On August 20, a team of Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO) had made a visit to the area in a fact finding mission. It found out that the OPSCP, which very well knew that this disaster would happen, came into action only after 11 days of the occurrence of the first breach even though the farmers had brought the matter to their notice. The OPSCB gave a notice to the Hindalco on August 18 to shut its power plants.
However, the company officials started giving media statements that stopping the power plants would mean stopping the smelter which will be ecologically more devastating. On August 20, when the team from WIO visited, only one unit - the smallest unit of 67.5 MW - was stopped and the rest were running. The company was dumping fly ash into the breached mount as usual putting thereby people to continued risk.
Fly ash has severe radiation impacts and the National Green Tribunal has already ordered the Government to consider these impacts while permitting any thermal power plant. However, the OSPCB as well as the State Government has turned a deaf ear to this.
Despite giving an order to close all power plants, the OSPCB did not ensure implementation of the order. The OSPCB first invited the company officials for a hearing. Immediately after that, the OSPCB sent an expert team to the area and within no time, kept its closure order on hold.
As per reports available on August 24, the company had so far closed only two out of the four units. The OSPCB said an inquiry into the issue had been conducted by experts comprising an ex-General Manager of Nalco and a professor from IIT Kharagpur. The experts reportedly recommended that the smelter plant should not be closed since it will have severe environmental impacts on the local soil and water.
While ash pond and mount breaches are a regular affair in the State but they go unnoticed unless a disaster happens. After the Hindalco case got exposed, similar activities of the Bhusan Steel and Power, Shyam Metalics and Vedanta Alumina limited too got exposed. In fact, Nalco, NTPC and Vedanta have been regular culprits in this regard.
However, as obvious from the Hindalco case, nothing happens. Rather the people who fight suffer and continue to live in hazardous zones. The State is planning 75,000 MW of coal-fired power plants in about half a decade. It means the per day generation of fly ash will be at least 6,13, 000 tonnes per day. Almost all the power plants are getting permission to run on the basis of undervalued calculation of land requirement. In reality, almost all of them need more land for disposing off the fly ash. However, to get clearance easily they give an undervalued account of land requirement. That's the reason each power plant is encroaching upon common spaces as well as private land to dispose their ash dumps illegally and in environmentally hazardous manner.
lack of any clear cut policy in the State that takes into account the site specific as well as cumulative impact of fly ash pollution makes it easier for the power plants to flout environmental laws.
(The writer, Convenor of Water Initiatives, is a senior researcher, writer and practitioner on water, environment and climate change issues. He can be contacted at ranjanpanda@gmail.com)