NTTPS plans expansion; people ashen with grief

• Already, areas around it reeling under pollution
• New unit to be bigger than all existing units
• 5,000 acres of fertile agriculture land laid barren
• ibrahimpatnam, Kondapalli and others to be hit
• PCB holding a public hearing on January 10
• An earlier PCB directive not followed by the plant

Vijayawada: The residents of Ibrahimpatnam, Kondapalli and a few more habitations around Dr Narla Tatarao Thermal Power Station (NTTPS), formerly known as Vijayawada Thermal Power Station (VTPS), are a harried lot these days.

Already suffocating under a blanket of fly ash emanating from the thermal plant, they have to brace for more shocking news. The plant is set to start yet another unit, bigger than all the seven units, sometime in 2014, sending clear signals of more ash clouding the houses and paddy fields of the area. The Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APBC) is set to hold a public hearing on the new plant at Ibrahimpatnam on January 10, 2014, to get clearance from the people. The public hearing which was initially scheduled to be held on September 26, 2013, was postponed due to the Samaikyandhra agitation.

The NTTPS, which has seven power generation units now, producing 1,760 MW of power using coal, has turned more than 5,000 acres of fertile agriculture land into waste land due to the high volume of ash emanating from the units. Besides the agricultural fields, the houses in the vicinity, too, are covered with the ash.

The ash pond located a little far away from the plant also has its share of curse on the people, polluting the area and groundwater. Repeated pleas of the people to the officials of the plant and the APBC engineers have fallen on deaf ears. The result: greenery is missing here and trees on the roadside are covered in ash.

The APPCB officials had in the past found that the plant was generating higher volume of pollution than the permitted standards of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) which stands at 115 milligrams (mg) per unit. However, the NTTPS here generates 136 mg to 148 mg from each unit, posing a threat to the environment of the area. The people here have been opposing the pollution and not the unit. The officials, who were expected to take action against the unit, have turned a blind eye to the threat as the NTTPS is a government organisation.

Leading environmentalist, Chaganti Venkateswarlu, who has been fighting against the pollution from the unit, could not make either the NTTPS officials or the APBC engineers address the problem. The APPCB, after repeated pleas by Venkateswarlu and the other people in the area, issued a notice to the NTTPS to improve its electro static precipitators (ESPs) to bring down the volume of the polluted ash, but in vain.

The NTTPS never acted on this, further intensifying the danger to the people and the area. Without addressing the people’s concerns, the officials are now gearing up for the eighth unit with a capacity of 800 MW of power which is estimated to cost Rs 5,286.54 crore.

The government has to acquire another 230 acres for an ash pond. The people here fear that the present ash pond located in 167.7 acres had wreaked havoc on the environment. And the prospect of another pond in an extent of 230 acres scares them. The officials have already identified the land under the survey numbers of 19 to 24, 31 to 41, 82, 83, 85 to 95, 104 to 106 and 109 to 113 of Trilochanapuram village for the new ash pond.