The polluted Konar river that compelled Bermo SDO to order Bokaro Thermal Power shutdown. (Pankaj Singh)

Bokaro Thermal Power Station (BTPS) was completely shut down from Thursday evening after a surprise raid by new Bermo sub-divisional officer (SDO) B.P. Singh revealed that accumulated slurry in one of the five ash ponds belonging to the DVC-owned company was flowing into nearby Konar river.

Although BTPS, which had been at the centre of an old pollution controversy, has three power generating units, two — No. 1 and No. 3 — had not been functioning for the past three days because of coal shortage. After Thursday’s raid, unit No. 2 also stopped working, triggering power cuts ranging up to over 10 hours across Dhanbad, Bokaro, Ranchi, Ramgarh in the run-up to the festive season.

At the time of its closure, unit No. 2 was producing 195MW of electricity while the total capacity of the plant is 630MW.

SDO Singh decided to conduct the raids after getting reports that coal slurry was still being discharged into Konar even though BTPS, which is 55km from Bokaro steel city, got a new ash pond just 3km away at Nooribagh two months ago.

Accompanied by Bermo circle officer Kiran Soren and other officials, the SDO visited the river at 2.30pm on Thursday and was aghast to find that four ash ponds of BTPS were filled to the brim with coal slurry. Effluents were leaking from ash pond No. 2 into Konar.

The fifth ash pond at Nooribagh was not being used because of repairs.

“The SDO summoned project head of BTPS Pramod Kumar, chief engineer J.P. Singh and deputy chief engineer B.D. Sahu, asking them to take immediate measures to stop flow of slurry into the river or be ready to face arrests. He also gave them six hours to act,” said a district official.

Though the officials sought at least one day’s time to plug in the leakage and also promised to repair the Nooribagh ash pond soon, the SDO refused to buy any argument.

After consulting DVC headquarters in Calcutta, the officials decided to stop production at the plant at 7.30pm. “We had no other option as the SDO was not willing to give us time to address the concerns he had raised,” Kumar said.

SDO Singh was stern. “Coal slurry and industrial waste were being openly discharged into Konar. I will not permit BTPS to pollute the river and the atmosphere,” he said.

This is not the first time that BTPS had to be shut down over the pollution controversy. Last year, the BTPS management had shut down its plant for a week from October 25 to clean up the four ash ponds after the state pollution board asked it not to release effluents into Konar.

In 2012, Bokaro district administration had filed a case against BTPS for releasing hazardous industrial waste into Konar river despite repeated reminders to take preventive measures.