The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday directed Essar Power, Hindalco and Reliance Power to install or bear the expenditure of water purification plants in the Singrauli and Sonbhadra regions of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh or face closure.
The green tribunal said that in case of default the state or central pollution control board shall serve a closure notice on the industrial units. The companies have been asked to bear the expenditure or install the plants within two weeks of the state governments issuing orders on plant installations. Essar Power operates the Mahan power project in Singrauli worth $1.2 billion and is the company?s third coal-fired project to start commercial operations in 2012. The plant has a capacity of 2,310 mw.
Earlier in April 2006, the ministry of coal had allocated the Mahan coal block jointly to Essar Power and Hindalco (in the ratio of 60:40) for their end-use projects in Singrauli ? Essar’s power project and Hindalco’s aluminium smelter and captive power project. Both the projects have been constructed at a total investment of close to Rs 20,000 crore. Reliance Power, on the other hand, operates the Sasan UMPP, a 3,960 mw pit-head coal-based power plant, in the same area. The project is the first domestic coal-based UMPP awarded in the country by the government. Responding to the plea, filed by SC advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, the NGT directed chief secretaries of UP and Madhya Pradesh to direct all big industries in that area to provide, install RO (reverse osmosis) plants of reasonable capacity.
