Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TSGenco), which is establishing the 5×800 megawatt Yadadri Thermal Power Station (YTPS) with plans to commission two units by December-end to meet the energy demand during the rabi/summer season, is keeping its fingers crossed in the matter of lifting suspension over Environmental Clearance by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).
Lifting of suspension over EC is necessary for installation of machinery and to go for trial run although construction work was not barred by the Southern Zone Bench of National Green Tribunal (NGT) while suspending the EC on September 30 last year, citing some violations in compliance of regulations as complained by two NGOs — Conservation Action Trust (Mumbai) and Samatha (Visakhapatnam).
A senior executive of TSGenco told The Hindu that they have complied with all the three issues raised by NGT in about six months against the nine months’ time given by the Tribunal and submitted the compliance report for appraisal by an expert committee of MoEF to lift suspension over EC. However, there has been no response from MoEF for three months now, he pointed out.
While suspending the EC, the NGT had raised issues of wildlife sanctuary/animal corridor, ambient air quality and impact of change in sourcing of coal supply for the first super-critical ultra-mega power project coming up in the State sector in the country. The TSGenco authorities stated that no wildlife sanctuary falls not only in the 10-km radius of the project site as required under provisions for EC, but it was not there in the 15-km radius too and it was certified by the Chief Warden of Wildlife.
On the issue of ambient air quality raised by NGT, the project authorities said fresh studies were conducted and found no possibility of any adverse impact. “The direction to get the impact study done in 250-km radius lacks any logic as the chances of any impact on air quality does not arise at all, when there is no issue within 15-km radius,” the senior executive observed.
Similarly, the issue of air quality with use of 100% local (Singareni Collieries) instead of 50% each blend of local and imported coal as planned initially was also got studied and no impact as the power project would have mandatory flu gas de-sulphurization (FGD) chambers to minimise the sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions into air to permissible levels. “The study has found that Singareni coal has very low sulphur content which is almost negligible,” the Genco official stated.
On the two NGOs which filed petitions in NGT, the Genco authorities pointed out that they have a motive only to halt the project and a CBI case was registered in April this year against the lawyer who appeared for them on the charges of violating the provisions of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. Along with a U.S.-based, another NGO of the lawyer was accused of “attempting to stall coal projects in India through litigation” in the CBI case.
