The central government has granted widespread exemptions to thermal power plants from complying with air pollution emissions norms, in a move experts say could be detrimental to public health.
On July 11, the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change issued a notification exempting thermal power plants which are due to retire by 2030 from complying with sulphur dioxide emissions standards, as long as they declare their year of retirement to the Central Pollution Control Board and the Central Electricity Authority.
As per the notification, only ‘Category A’ plants – those located within 10 kilometres of the National Capital Region and other cities with populations exceeding one million – need to comply with sulphur dioxide emissions standards by December 2027.
Plants that have obtained environmental clearance and are located within a 10-kilometre radius of other critically polluted areas – ‘Category B’ – have the option of complying with norms by December 2028 or appealing to the centrally-appointed Expert Appraisal Committee for exemption. Whether up-and-coming plants in this category need to comply with emissions norms will be determined through the environmental clearance process, the notification says.
The most dramatic change is for ‘Category C’ plants that are neither located close to big cities nor to critically polluted areas, but which make up the vast majority of thermal power plants in the country. The notification states that these plants needn’t comply with sulphur dioxide standards at all, as long as the height of their chimneys (stacks) meet required limits.
Once released into the atmosphere, sulphur dioxide can react with other pollutants to form hazardous PM2.5 particles. Between June 2022 and May 2023, thermal power plants released approximately 4,327 kilotonnes of sulphur dioxide.
Non-retiring and non-compliant plants will have to pay environmental compensation of up to Rs. 0.40 per unit of electricity generated, depending on the tenure of non-compliance.
The government has said the changes were introduced because of limited availability of flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) technologies, supply chain issues, price escalations, and “low sulphur dioxide concentration in ambient air” — all reasons that have been challenged by policy experts and scientists.
Previously, all thermal power plants, regardless of category, were mandated to meet emissions standards by installing FGD technology.
“Granting such a large-scale exemption undermines the effectiveness of the emission standards and poses a serious risk to public health and environmental sustainability,” said Shreya Verma, programme manager at the Centre for Science and Environment, in a statement.
Banner image: A power plant in Kolkata. Representative image by Smeet Chowdhury via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
