BHUBANESWAR: The Ministry of Power will convene a joint meeting with the ministries of Coal, Environment and Railways to address the issue of fly ash disposal, a serious problem faced by the state due to improper dumping by industries and thermal power plants.
This was assured by Union Power minister Manohar Lal Khattar here on Sunday during a review meeting with Deputy Chief Minister KV Singh Deo on the energy sector development in the state.
The discussions mostly covered issues such as fly ash utilisation, capacity addition for power generation, transmission infrastructure and power allocation.
Khattar said, four districts of Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Sundargarh and Angul are facing environmental issues due to improper disposal of fly ash and industries not meeting the utilisation target as mandated by the Ministry of Environment. The joint meeting will address the issue comprehensively, including the provision of adequate rail rakes for long-distance transportation of fly ash, he added.
The minister also said that the proposal for establishing a Green Energy corridor within the intrastate transmission network of Odisha will be taken up by MNRE after March 31, upon completion of the compilation process. To the state’s demand for inclusion in the subsequent phase of the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), he assured that it will be considered.
Energy minister KV Singh Deo informed him that the state currently has 20 GW of operational coal-based thermal power capacity with an additional 10 GW in the pipeline, expected to be commissioned over the next five to six years.
Khattar called for development of more pit-head thermal power plants in joint ventures with power generation companies of other states. On power allocation, he said Odisha will receive adequate power from phase-II of NLCIL’s Talabira Thermal power project in line with the ministry guidelines.
