Press Note
Yet another committee for controversial Chinese waste incinerator
technology based Okhla plant
Green Tribunal fixes April 4, 2013 as the next date of hearing
New Delhi: On the second day of
the case at the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Okhla’s heavily
polluting hazardous Chinese incinerator technology based power plant on March
11, 2013, the bench headed by Hon'ble Mr. Justice Swatanter Kumar constituted a
5 member committee comprising of four members from the government and one from
among the applicants to test the samples from the plant of Delhi's
Timarpur-Okhla Waste Management Co Pvt Ltd (TOWMCL) of M/s Jindal Urban
Infrastructure Limited (JUIL), a company of M/s Jindal Saw Group Limited. The
committee has been given the task of submitting its report within 14 days. Residents
from Okhla who were present to witness the hearing expressed dismay at the
formation of yet another committee. The
next date of hearing is on April 4, 2013. Two respondents including Municipal
Corporation of Delhi were absent.
Instead of
forming yet another committee, the Green Tribunal should have examined the 31
page report of the Union Environment & Forests Ministry constituted
Technical Experts Evaluation Committee of Central Pollution Control Board
(CPCB) on the Timarpur-Okhla Waste to Energy Incinerator Plant has condemned
the Timarpur-Okhla Waste to Energy Incinerator Plant by JITF Urban
Infrastructure Limited (Jindal Ecopolis) has violated every rule in the rule
book including environmental clearance conditions. It revealed to the Experts
Committee in September 2011 that it is using untested and unapproved Chinese
incinerator technology in complete violation all laws and environmental
clearance of 2007 including its own project design document and environment
impact assessment report. Chinese technology provider is from Hangzhou New
Century Company Ltd of Hangzhou Boiler Group.
The municipal
waste based power plant has been set in violation of the Supreme Court order in
the Writ Petition (Civil) 888/1996. The court has put a stay on subsidy for
waste to energy projects except 5 pilot projects based on Biomethanation
technology. It has come to light that none of Delhi’s three projects are based
on biomethanation technology and are not the pilot projects approved by the
court. The Timarpir-Okhla project is getting incentives from the government
although the apex court has put a stay on subsidy. Although the court’s order
applies to Delhi’s other waste to energy incinerator projects it is functioning
with impunity.
The
Review of Technical Evaluation by Anant Trivedi, Member, Technical Evaluation
Committee, CPCB reads: "The Okhla plant has a capacity of 2050 tpd of
domestic waste input. However the plant design allows upto 10,000 tpd of input
for incineration. Toxic bottom ash quantity produced will be 20-30% of input.
This amounts to at least 410 tpd rising to a maximum of 3,000 tpd. Additionally
there will be toxic flyash of about 10% of the bottom ash.None of the landfill
sites have the capacity to take in so much toxic waste and mulba has been
dumped every where including all public spaces." He asks, "so what is
proposed to safeguard public health from this toxic substance?
Earlier, the matter came up for
hearing in the Tribunal on February 22, 2013 wherein the Tribunal announced
that the case Sukhdev Vihar Residents Welfare Association & Ors. Vs State
of NCT of Delhi & Ors has been admitted as Original Application No. 22/2013
(THC).
It is a case about a
controversial carbon trade project in a densely populated residential area. The
case which was filed by the residents’ welfare association (RWA) of Sukhdev
Vihar, Okhla in the Delhi High Court from 2009 to 2013 was transferred to the
Tribunal on January 23, 2013 despite having been listed for some hearing 27
times without any relief.
In
significant move, Asian Development Bank (ADB) has withdrawn from this Rs
200-crore power project at Okhla in south Delhi. The bank had promised about Rs
10 crore to the plant under the Asia Pacific Carbon Fund. ToxicsWatch Alliance
(TWA) had written to the ADB. In a reply, ADB informed: “Asia Pacific Carbon
Fund is no longer associated with TOWMCL integrated waste-to-energy project in
Delhi and no funds were released to this project” besides that it has also
decided to stop providing technical assistance to the project.
But Union
Minister for Environment & Forests, Jayanthi Natarajan has stated in Rajya
Sabha that although “complaints were received against the incineration of
municipal waste and its likely harmful effects on the air quality and health of
people in the Sukhdev Vihar/Okhla area due to the emissions from
Waste-to–Energy plant at Okhla… on four occasions out of ten, levels of
Particulate matter (PM) exceeded the standard of 150 mg/Nm3” however “the Minister
said that as per the Central pollution Control Board, the technology being used
by the Waste-to-Energy plant at Okhla is as specified in the Municipal Solid
Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000.” This is far from truth as is
evident from the CPCB’s report which is now in public domain.
In the CPCB
report, Dr A B Akolkar, Director, CPCB emphasized that as per Municipal Solid
Waste (Management & Handling) Rules ‘biodegrdable waste’ is to be treated
using biological method rather than deriving RDF or by incineration as is being
done by Jindal Ecopolis. This clearly demonstrates that the Timarpur-Okhla
Waste to Energy Incinerator Plant violates the Municipal Solid Waste
(Management & Handling) Rules framed under Environment Protection Act,
1986.
In the
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 9901 of 2009 in Delhi High Court, legal officials
like Mr A S Chandiok Additional Solicitor General and Standing Counsel for the
Delhi Government and for the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, Najmi Waziri
has been misleading and misrepresenting facts about waste to energy plants in
Andhra Pradesh by saying that “the Refuse Derived Fuel incineration technology
was already in use at Hyderabad and Vijayawada”. The fact is that there is no
plant in Hyderabad. The plant that became functional as per legal officials now
stands defunct is in Shadnagar, Mahboobnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. On
18th July, 2011, Delhi High Court asked CPCB and the Delhi Pollution Control
Committee (DPCC) to conduct a joint inquiry about India's first waste-to-energy
plant and file a report on the allegations that it posed health risks to
citizens. "A joint report be submitted by the DPCC and the CPCB after an
inquiry of the site of the energy plant about the alleged risks posed to
citizens," ordered a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv
Khanna, Delhi High Court. This has not been done so far. A bizarre situation
has emerged because the arguments for ‘Refuse Derived Fuel incineration
technology’ that was advanced by the law officers is no more relevant because
the plant is using an experimental Chinese technology which was never ever
mentioned at the time of submitting the project proposal.
There
have been incessant demonstrations and protest rallies against this project.
There is an ongoing campaign against it. The plant that has been built despite
protest is 150 m from the residential areas. The area has a bird sanctuary, a
university and three hospitals within a radius of 10 kilometres. All will be
adversely affected by toxic fumes of the plant. The idea of waste to energy
plants which is based on a tried, tested and failed incineration technology in
Okhla.
MCD,
Delhi government and central government have shown unpardonable callousness
towards hazardous emissions from municipal incinerators that cause serious
environmental and health problems both to people living near them and thousands
of kilometres from the source. These projects are destroying the livelihood of
about 3.5 lakh waste recycling workers and valuable resource material for
compost that is required to be treated by composting/anaerobic digestion/vermin
composting/other biological processing for stabilization as per Municipal Solid
Waste (Management & Handling) Rules. Representatives of GTZ (German
Technical Cooperation) led by Dr. Juergen Porst, Senior Advisor have stressed
the need for a Disaster Management Plan in the very first meeting of the CPCB’s
Technical Expert Committee, which is annexed to the CPCB’s report. But this
does not find mention in the recommendations of the report. This finds
reference in the minutes of the meeting annexed with the report. It underlines
the possibility of disaster from the Timarpur-Okhla Waste to Energy Incinerator
Plant, which is situated in a residential area. It is noteworthy that a
hazardous plant in Bhopal’s residential area that led to world worst industrial
disaster in 1984 also did not have any disaster management plan.
The report apprehended that the information
that is submitted to the experts committee of CPCB might be used in the
on-going case in the Delhi High Court. It makes a shocking revelation that
although High Court has been hearing the case since 2009, the project proponent
did not inform the court about gross deviations from the project design plan
envisaged in the EIA report. As per the minutes of the second meeting of the
technical experts committee, non-cooperative approach of the senior officials
of Timarpur-Okhla Waste to Energy Incinerator Plant was condemned on August 11,
2011.
Representatives of GTZ underlined that there was lack of transparency
with regard to environmental and health impact on the neighborhood residents.
It was also noted that the fugitive emissions and the expected emission of
Dioxins and Furans has not been quantified. The characteristic of ash and
required standards was not mentioned. Prof. T R Sreekrishnan, Department of Biochemical
Engineering and Biotechnology stated that disposal option for incineration
instead of bio-methanation proposed for green waste is in violation of what was
mentioned in the EIA report.
For Details: Gopal Krishna, Convener,
ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA), Mb: 9818089660
Email:
krishna1715@gmail.com, Web:toxicswatch.blogspot.com
Vimal Monga,
ex-President, Sukhdev Vihar Resident Welfare Association Mb: 9711408421
Asha Arora, Okhla
Anti-incinerator Committee, Mb:
9810499277
Okhla Anti-incinerator
Committee, http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/ghoslaokhla
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