Lanco Power under scrutiny for violating environment norms

Lanco Power has come under the scanner of green panel in Chhattisgarh as the state government has threatened to stop production in its Korba power station for allegedly violating the environment control norms.

The Lanco Power has a 1920-Mw power station in Pathadi village in the name of Lanco Amarkantak Power Private Limited (LAPPL), a subsidiary of the Group. Besides two units of 300-Mw each, the station has two units of 660-Mw.

The two units of 300-Mw has started production while the construction work of 660-Mw third unit was in progress. The company was supposed to develop a green belt in the premises besides utilization the fly ash under the plan it had submitted. But the company allegedly failed to do so.

The LAPPL had to develop green belt in 210 acres of area for the first two units while for the third 660-Mw unit, it had to do plantation in 106 acres. For the fourth unit of 660-Mw, the company had to plant saplings in 211 acres of area. In all, LAPPL had to develop green belt in 527 acres of area. But the company reportedly did plantation in just 17 acres of land.

“The board took a serious note and served notice to the company on April 10, 2012 warning to close the power production if it failed to follow the norms,” official in Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board (CECB) said. The notice was issued by the Regional Officer of the board B S Thakur.

Besides plantation, the board had pointed out towards company’s reportedly failure in fly ash utilization in the plant. According to the officials, the Lanco unit was supposed to have 70 per cent ash utilization from the second year of starting the commercial production that began in 2009.

“But the company is disposing 100 per cent ash without utilizing it,” Laxmi Chouhan, director of Sarthak—a non-government organization working for environment protection in Korba—said. The company should not be granted permission to operate the third and fourth units as it had failed to utilize the fly ash coming out from the first two units, he added.

The company is going for a major the expansion programme and had planned to enhance the capacity from 1920-Mw to 3240-Mw. The villagers are however opposing the expansion plan.

The company said that it has provided satisfactory responses in respect of the two specific points of fly ash utilization and green belt development to CECB recently. “Lanco’s Action Plan on fly ash utilization and green belt development is acceptable to CECB,” A Narasimhan, Senior Vice President (Corporate Communications) of Lanco said.

As two more units are under construction, the authorities have taken cognizance of Lanco’s progress by developing supplementary plantation of 57 acres with the support of Chattisgarh Van Vikas Nigam Limited, Narasimhan added.