Villagers and farmers residing around Kahalgaon super thermal power station in Bhagalpur district are living in constant fear of Health hazards and damage to their standing crops due to improper management of fly ash generated at the plant in course of production of electricity, a study has claimed.
Apart from the health hazard caused due to heavy concentration of small particles in ambient air, standing crops on around 80 hectares field near the plant was damaged last year and early this year as the ash dyke breached its embankment and pipe of ash slurry burst owing to technical fault near Chaitola and Masdaha near Kahalgaon.
The plant is owned and run by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), a central public sector enterprise.
Similarly, several houses were flooded with ash slurry in Bokaro after a pond built to store the fly ash near the Bokaro thermal power station, also run by NTPC, overflew in September 2019. Power station authorities attribute the accident to excessive rains.
These are a few incidents of fly ash management at coal-fired power stations in Bihar and Jharkhand featured in a study carried out jointly by advocacy groups like Asar Social Impact Advisors, Research on Energy and Clean Air and Manthan Adhyay Kendra recently. The study, titled Lest we Forget – A status report of neglect of coal ash accidents in India (May 2019-May 2021), was released recently.
The report says penalties being levied on coal-based power plant operators have hardly improved things. Despite clear rules for fly ash management, villagers and farmers are exposed to suffer, it says.
Power Plants have failed at not only removal of ash, remediation of sites, addressing health impacts but also in paying full compensation to affected villages, report said.