Kathmandu– In 2015, India announced new emission norms for thermal power plants across India and deadline for meeting the norms is December 2019.
A new survey conducted by New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment (CSE) indicates that most plants will not meet the deadline.
“This means that thermal power plants in Delhi-NCR will continue to contribute to the overload of toxic pollution in the capital’s air,” CSE said in a press release.
The Delhi-NCR region has over 3,000 legal brick kilns, which had been largely practicing the extremely polluting FCBTK process of manufacturing bricks.
In a major step forward, and following action and directives from the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), these kilns have agreed to convert to a cleaner technology – what is known as the zigzag process. However, a new CSE assessment reveals that more than half of the kilns have not converted to the zigzag technology efficiently, thereby negating any gains that might have accrued from them in Delhi’s fight against bad air.
Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General, CSE said: “Delhi-NCR’s comprehensive clean air action plan is floundering because of the apathy of the regulatory agencies. Our survey of brick kilns and thermal power plants shows that despite regulations and intervention of the Supreme Court and the EPCA, the implementation on the ground is highly compromised. Thermal power plants will not be able to meet stringent emission norms by 2019, and brick kilns’ conversion to a cleaner zigzag technology will not lead to real reductions in emissions.”
The CSE survey was conducted to analyse the quality of conversion in 63 kilns across 13 districts in Delhi-NCR (see survey report on www.cseindia.org).
To ascertain the combustion efficiency of the kilns, CSE also monitored the emissions of seven kilns – six of which have adopted the zigzag technology, while one continues to operate the old FCBTK process. The assessment’s findings were as follows:
About 1,000 kilns have already ‘converted’ to the zigzag technology, and the remaining 1,500 have given an affidavit to the EPCA to convert by October 2018.
The conversion to zigzag is leading to real reductions in emissions. If the conversion quality is good, the emissions reduction can be as much as 50-70 per cent. However, only about 20 per cent of the surveyed kilns had done good conversion.
About 30 per cent of the kilns had average conversion quality and will be able to reduce emissions by 20-30 per cent, compared to the FCBTK technology.
Thirty five per cent of the kilns had poor conversion quality and will not see any measurable reductions in emissions.
About 15 per cent of the brick kilns were found to be bypassing the law. They have done cosmetic changes and have not converted to the zigzag technology.
The survey result was confirmed by pollution monitoring of 10 per cent of the surveyed kilns. Early stage of embryo development has been achieved at the laboratory.
