Can't control pollution by units of states, private sector: Power ministry

Can ensure that only plants owned by NTPC, Damodar Valley comply with norms, Centre tells SC

The Union power ministry has told the Supreme Court it is capable of ensuring that only the 57 thermal power plants owned by NTPC and Damodar Valley Corporation comply with the air pollution and water-consumption norms. That too, by 2021, after a partial dilution of the standards. 

It has asked for a partial dilution and substantial delay in imposing the air and water consumption norms on the country’s thermal power plants.  The regulations, already in force, required more than the 500 existing power plants, adding up to around 160 GW, meeting the standards by December 2017. But, none complied with them entirely. 

After a rap on the knuckles by the Supreme Court, the power ministry has requested that the standards be diluted and then imposed on 105 of these coal-fired power plants, adding up to 56,750 MW, by 2021. It has pleaded that no penalty should be imposed on any power plant for missing the 2017 deadline to comply with the mandatory standards in accordance with the regulations under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. The power ministry has said even of the 105, it would be able to ensure compliance only in the case of 57 power plants, which it owns through public sector units such as NTPC and Damodar Valley Corporation. After three years of advocating dilution of and delay in implementing the standards on behalf of all the thermal power generators, including the private ones, it has now told the court it has no regulatory handle over private power generators and those owned by states to force them to follow the environmental norms even by 2022. 

The power ministry has left it to the courts and environment ministry to ensure compliance by the rest by 2022. Coal-fired power plants continue to be one of the biggest industrial sources of air pollution and water consumers in the country. Studies have shown that the older standards the thermal power sector follows at the moment are one of the weakest among emerging and developed economies.

When the environment ministry proposed stricter norms in 2015, in line with global trends, the power ministry agreed that more than 500 existing power plants be asked to follow the strict air and water pollution norms by the end of 2017. It also agreed that all power plants commissioned after 2017 would have to be in line with the new standards. After rounds of consultations between the two, in December 2015, the environment ministry notified stricter standards, to be implemented from 2017-end.  

But soon after, the power ministry, the Central Electricity Authority and the power generators balked at the idea, show government documents. Even as the formal notification continued to stand, they began working to delay and dilute the implementation of the notification, initially asking that the standards be imposed by up to 2022-24 with most of the existing plants retrofitting to meet the standards by the end of this period. The power ministry and industry cited technical and financial difficulties. The Central Pollution Control Board, the environment ministry’s apex body for environmental standards, reiterated that technical difficulties did not exist in meeting the strict timeline. But, then the environment ministry took the backseat and the power ministry drove the negotiations for dilutions and the delay, records show. Subsequently, litigants filed a case was filed in the National Green Tribunal in 2016, asking that the government implement its regulations which had been breached. Then in 2017 the Supreme Court triggered hearings on the issue based on a status report by the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority Protection.

Initially the government claimed it was working to ensure that all met the standards. But the 2017 deadline passed and it emerged before the court that almost no power plant had even drawn up plans to upgrade their pollution abatement technologies. The environment ministry sent an official communication in December 2017 — two weeks before the norms were to kick in — saying the power plants could continue with higher levels of pollution till 2022, just as the power ministry had decided.

The Supreme Court stepped up pressure in 2018 after the power ministry presented a similar deadline with an escape route for many power plants, even from the lax deadline. 

In July, the court responded to the ministry’s fresh proposal and concluded, “It seems quite clear that the Ministry of Power has absolutely no intention of doing anything to reduce the air pollution generated by coal-based thermal power plants.” It found that even the proposed 2022 deadline was “completely illusory in nature”. 

The court recorded, “It, therefore, appears to us quite clear that the Union of India proposes to do nothing substantive in the matter.” The court asked the power ministry to consult the amicus in the case, Sunita Narain, and come up with a detailed and firm timeline for all power plants with a capacity of above 500 MW located in areas with a population density above 400 persons per square kilometre.

During these discussions the power ministry pleaded for a delayed timeline and dilution. After negotiations in the meeting, the power ministry has now pleaded that 105 power plants of over 500 MW located in areas with over 400 persons per square kilometre or in critically polluted areas be allowed to meet the 2017 air pollution standards by 2021. It has also asked for diluting the standards for nitrous oxide pollution for these 105 plants. The environment ministry has diluted the 2017 norms for water consumption by all power plants. 

Technically, the environment ministry’s instructions of December 2017 still stand for all power plants to comply with the standards by 2022 but the Supreme Court has dismissed them as an “illusion” and is yet to address the question of how and when the units beyond the 57 central government-owned thermal power plants will follow the norms. Upon the power ministry stating that it has no power to govern the rest on matters of pollution, the Supreme Court has asked the Association of Independent Power Producers to give its arguments. The Environment Protection Control Authority, or EPCA, has suggested power plants that do not follow the norms by 2022 should be put low on the merit order for dispatch of electricity.

The apex court will next hear the matter in November.