Progress minus pollution

Cuttack, March 11: Orissa State Pollution Control Board has cleared the proposed Tata thermal power plant project around Naraj village, some 10km from here.

At a public hearing on the project, held in the presence of hundreds of villagers at Naraj High School ground yesterday, the state panel’s chairman P.K. Routray presented a conceptual review of the plant.

The chairman clarified that apprehensions about the plant persisted owing to lack of awareness regarding technology.

“In present times concrete steps may be taken to sustain ecological balance while setting up a plant,” Routray clarified.

The state board held the public hearing following the submission of an environment impact assessment report by the Tata Power Company (TPC) on the project last month. Tata Power Company, in September 2006, had signed an MoU with the Orissa government to set up a 1000MW coal-based power project at Naraj-Marthapur.

Since then, local organisations Siddheswar Anchalik Surakhsya Samiti and Lok Shakti Abhiyan had mobilised people against the plant, stating it would pose serious threats to the environment.

The Tata plant’s project officer R.K. Patra assured that Tata would install electrostatic precipitators with 99.9 per cent efficiency at the plant to keep suspended particulate matter under control.

The green process would also include a fly ash aggregate plant to convert ash into lightweight aggregates, a building material, and tall chimneys to limit ground-level emissions.