New Delhi: As the proposed notification by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has scrapped the mandatory washing of coal for thermal plants, Congress MP and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh termed it as a "Cure worse than the disease".
The Congress leader wrote a letter addressed to Union Environment Minister, Prakash Javadekar, stating, "The notifications will undo whatever limited progress has been made so far in reducing the pollution load of coal based power stations. It is also in contravention of assurances given in Parliament and to the Standing Committee on Coal and Steel. It will also mitigate against the commitments India has made as a part of Paris agreement."
In a gazetted notification issued on May 21, the ministry amended the Environment Protection Act to drop mandatorily washing coal for supply to thermal plants. However, the move witnessed strong objection from various experts of the sector, pointing towards the loopholes in the notification.
In 2015, as a part of its climate-change commitments, the Government had made coal washing mandatory for supply to all thermal units more than 500 km from the coal mine, while focusing on emission control.
Jairam Ramesh mentioned that the usage of washed coal helps in minimizing particulate matter emissions and increase the calorific value of the coal being combusted.
"Our thermal power plants have repeatedly missed the deadlines to adhere to emission norms. High ash content of India coal has been a very serious problem and coal washeries were conceived to deal with this. It is not just emissions of carbon dioxide we have to worry about, India is now the world's largest emitter of Sulphur dioxide, something we have not acknowledged and done little significant about," he noted.
The Congress leader alleged that Coal India had "dragged" it's feet in setting up was washeries as planned but failed to supply quality washed coal to power plants.
He further slammed the Government, "The tardy progress of Coal India to setup coal washeries over the past 6 years as planned and stipulated cannot be the reason to give up entirely and succumb to pressure from vested interest who can only be called political powerful power producers- 4 P's to use the favourite language of Prime Minister."
Therefore, Jairam Ramesh urged the Union Environment Minister to immediately rescind the notification, consult with all stakeholders concerned on the way forward and take stringent measures to ensure emissions from India's thermal power stations are aligned with standards and commitments and that no more deadlines are missed.
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