The Narla Tatarao Thermal Power Station (NTTPS), which was mired in a controversy surrounding its CSR activities, recently received some good news in the form of Greentech Silver Award for the environment protection measures it had taken last year.
The award will be presented at a function to be organised at Chandigarh on January 30.
The selection of the NTTPS for the coveted award is for raising the greenbelt in the vicinity of the power station and conserving the environment in general.
The Greentech awards are presented every year by the New Delhi-based not-for-profit organisation Greentech Foundation for environment protection in all industrial and services sectors, according to Executive Engineer V. Venkat Reddy.
It was just two weeks ago that the NTTPS had drawn flak in the environmental public hearing for allegedly failing in keeping pollution under control within a radius of 10 km and making false claims on the greenbelt.
Residents of 12 villages were upset with the depositing of fly-ash and heavy metals on their houses and agriculture fields and large concentration of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM).
The NTTPS management’s claim that it had controlled pollution by installing electrostatic precipitators and other equipment was rubbished by the people, who insisted that pollutants still rained on their houses.
The Greentech award comes against the backdrop of a fresh allocation of nearly Rs.22 crore for CSR activities to be undertaken during the construction of Stage-V of 800 MW, plus Rs.15 crore promised to be sanctioned with retrospective effect from 1979 when the first unit of 210 MW was commissioned.
Reduction of emissionsThe targeted reduction of specific emissions and SPM by roughly 2 per cent owing to a one per cent increase in efficiency likely to be achieved by the super-critical technology in Stage-V is to be seen in the larger scheme of things.
