Odisha wants excise duty waiver on fly ash

The state being a large scale user of coal and iron ore, generates huge amount of fly ash

The state government has urged the Centre to lift the 12 per cent central excise duty levied on manufacturing of fly ash bricks.

Odisha being a large scale user of coal and iron ore, generates huge amount of fly ash.

In order to ensure its recycling through manufacturing of fly-ash bricks, the state government has incentivised the industry by way of exemption of VAT (value added tax) on bricks made from fly ash.

However, Government of India still charges central excise duty of 12 per cent on the manufacturing of these bricks, which does not make it cost effective in the market as compared to bricks made from mud.

"We have requested the Government of India to incentivise the manufacturing of fly ash bricks through exemption of central excise duty. Our finance minister has also raised the issue at the pre-Budget consultation meeting of finance ministers last week", said an official.

Manufacturing fly-ash bricks is a process of effective recycling of the industrial waste, which would have otherwise resulted in environmental degradation.

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 increase to about 130 million tonne per annum after the commissioning of proposed power plants with 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 4000 Mw. The state government has inked memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 28 IPPs.

Presently, the level of fly ash utilization in the state is only 55 per cent. About 31 per cent of the fly ash generated is used for land and mine void filling, 6.94 per cent for ash pond dyke raising and 9.74 per cent for other purposes like cenosphere, soil remediation and leveling of common spaces.

The cumulative fly ash accumulation in ash ponds and mounds is pegged at around 93.86 million tonne in the last 12 years.