The coal-based Badarpur power plant will reopen on March 15, the EPCA today said, lifting a raft of measures implemented under the 'severe' air category of the graded response plan.
The measures, including a ban on Diesel Generator sets, were lifted after the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) informed the SC-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) that the air quality in the city was no longer in the 'severe' category.
It has been oscillating between 'poor' and 'moderate' qualities of late, a CPCB official told an EPCA meeting, chaired by its head retired bureaucrat Bhure Lal.
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The Delhi Power Department told the EPCA the thermal plant, essentially two of its units of 210 MW each, have to function to meet the power needs of south Delhi areas and the peak demand during the summers, which may touch a high of 6600 MW this year.
During that period, the air quality in and around the station and the flyash pit will be monitored, for which the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) will appoint National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).
The plant will function till the onset of winter, EPCA member Sunita Narain said, which in terms of date would be October 15 as per the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
However, the NTPC-run power plant will be allowed to function subject to a set of conditions including the emptying of its flyash pit within a time-frame and timely commissioning of the 400-KV Tughlaqabad sub-station by June 2018.
Once the sub-station is launched, the Badarpur plant will be allowed to operate only if it converts to cleaner natural gas, Narain said.
The Delhi government will also write to the Badarpur plant management asking it to submit a closure plan in this regard.
It has also been learnt that the Delhi Chief Secretary will write to the Union Power Secretary and the CMD of NTPC to determine a time-frame by which the flyash pit is to be emptied.
EPCA ordered that measures under the GRAP's moderate to poor categories, including action against open burning of leaves and construction dust, will be implemented through the year.
However, Bhure Lal expressed concern over the violation of the directives, especially burning of leaves in the open, and questioned the efficiency of the monitoring and enforcing mechanism of the agencies concerned.
A notification on the ban on DG sets, put out by the Delhi government, will lapse tomorrow.
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