NTPC biodiversity park to make way for fly ash

State-owned power generation firm NTPC may soon be asked to relocate a biodiversity park at its Dadri thermal power plant, Uttar Pradesh, to meet the fly ash requirement of the highway sector.

The issue was flagged at a group of infrastructure meeting last week and Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal — who attended the meeting, along with Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan and railways and defence ministry officials — agreed to shift the eco-park to another location.

The meeting, chaired by Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, was held to iron out issues impacting the progress of highway construction.

Road ministry officials had brought up the issue during the meeting as NTPC was unable to supply the promised quantity of fly ash from its Dadri plant. The fly ash was for the construction of the ambitious Eastern Peripheral Expressway.

The Dadri plant was only supplying one-sixth of the fly ash requirement of 1,200 cubic metres for the project. Company officials explained fly ash was stored in a pond and the biodiversity park made on top of it.

Removing the park would make it easier to access more fly ash for the highway project.

In terms of production, measured in million tonnes, during 2016-17, 29.57 mt of fly ash, which was 50.58 per cent of the total ash generated at the NTPC power stations, was used for various productive purposes. From the Dadri unit alone, 1.9 million tonnes were supplied for various road projects in 2016-17.

The group of infrastructure includes participants from the ministries of power, coal, environment, railways and aviation, among others.

Fly ash is a byproduct of burning coal and is usually produced at thermal power stations. It can replace cement in concrete-making during road 

construction.

Besides addressing this issue with the ministry of power, Gadkari also asked the officials from the related ministries to fast-track key infrastructure projects and reached out to all the stakeholders for quicker clearances.

The 135-km Eastern Peripheral Expressway project would connect Kundli, to the north of Delhi, on National Highway-1 with Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. It aims to give signal-free connectivity between Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gautam Budh Nagar (Greater Noida) and Palwal.

What is fly ash?

• Fly ash is a by-product obtained by burning coal and is usually produced at thermal power stations 
• It can be used for replacing cement to produce concrete for road construction 
• It is utilised in cement and asbestos industry, ready mix concrete plants, road embankment, brick making, mine filling, ash dyke raising and land development