CPCB report on pollution caused during the management of fly ash by Panipat Thermal Power Plant, Haryana, 01/12/2021
Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report in Original Application No 581/2019 in the matter of Residents of Gram Panchayat Jatal, District Sonipat Vs State of Haryana, dated 01/12/2021. The matter related to pollution caused during the management of fly ash by Panipat Thermal Power Plant.
A Joint Committee formed to look into the matter obtained and examined the ash generation and utilization data from the thermal power plant, Panipat for the financial years 2018-2021 to compute environmental compensation (EC) for non-utilization of 100 per cent of ash for years 2018 and 2019.
The Joint Committee could not assess the damage caused to the environment and public health due to non-availability of adequate data and asked the HSPCB to issue letter to PTPP to engage an institute of repute for assessment of damage caused to the environment, agriculture, groundwater and public health, so that assessment of damage in monetary terms could be finalized by the Joint Committee.
In response to this, the Panipat Thermal Power Plant obtained the offer of CSIR-NEERI for conducting the damage assessment. CSIR-NEERI has said that the time required for conducting damage assessment was 12 months involving a cost of Rs. 72 lakhs. As the timeline indicated by the CSIR-NEERI was considered to be too long to comply with the directions of the NGT, it was decided by the Joint Committee to carry out the assessment of damages in two stages.