In order to dispose of the ash accumulated in its ash ponds, National Aluminium Company (Nalco) has decided to offer cash incentive of Rs 100 per cubic metre subject to the minimum lifting of 4000 cubic metres in a calendar month.
The cost of loading and transportation of the ash would have to be borne by the concerned party. At present, Nalco is providing pond ash free of cost to the end-users.
Around 7000 tonnes of fly ash is generated every day at Nalco’s 1200 MW coal-based captive power plant (CPP) at Angul. The ash so generated is mixed with water and disposed of in slurry form through pipelines to the company’s ash ponds spread over 600 acres.
Nalco's ash ponds are located five km from the National Highway (NH)-42 and are well connected through an approach road.
“The Nalco authorities are worried over the accumulation of ash in the ash ponds. The ash needs to be cleared as two ash ponds of Nalco are filled to capacity”, said a company official.
Nalco's ash ponds currently have embankments which are 20 metres high and the company intends to raise their height to 23 metres.
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Besides raising the height of the embankments, Nalco is in talks with the authorities of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) for evacuation of ash slurry to fill up a void coal mine at Talcher.
MCL has given in-principle approval to hand over the abandoned Bharatpur coal mine for the purpose, sources said.
The pond ash is good for land filling and road construction work. The use of pond ash in road construction helps in conserving precious soil and sand. It can also reduce the quantity of Portland cement in the construction of concrete roads.