Odisha mulls fly ash park in Angul

The state government plans to set up a fly ash park in Angul district through cluster approach for value addition of the industrial waste.

According to a concept note, the power producer NTPC may provide land and develop the basic infrastructure facility for the fly ash park, where the ashes generated at NTPC plants and other projects will be stored.

"The plan is in a conceptual stage," said a government official.

The cluster will comprise of micro, small and medium enterprise keen to process the fly ash. The project will be implemented through public private partnership (PPP) mode with participation of federation of local women self-help groups.

A common facility centre proposed at the park will collect, test and classify various raw materials such as fly ash, MnO (manganese ore) slag and sand. The centre will also provide basic services in terms of marketing and training to the cluster firms.

"The objective of the project is to help combat pollution in the region even while promoting value addition in the fly ash sector. The common facility centre is expected to help cluster enterprises to produce quality value added products such as fly ash bricks and blocks," read the concept note.

Odisha, with present capacity of around 12,000 Mw thermal power, generates about 25 million tonne of fly ash every year. The ash generation is likely to cross 100 million tonne per annum after the commissioning of the proposed power plants in the state with combined envisaged capacity of nearly 50,000 Mw.

The projected capacity includes power projects to be commissioned by the independent power producers (IPPs), expansion plan of NTPC Ltd and two ultra-mega power projects, each with capacity of 4,000 Mw. The state government has inked memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 28 IPPs.

The level of fly ash utilization in the state was around 62 per cent in 2013-14. This industrial waste is mainly used for land and mine void filling, ash pond dyke raising and other such purposes like cenosphere, soil remediation and levelling of common spaces.

The cumulative fly ash accumulation in ash ponds and mounds is pegged at around 90 million tonne in the last 12 years.