The ash pond at the Dr. Narla Tata Rao Thermal Power Station (NTTPS) at Ibrahimpatnam near here has a capacity to take additional volumes only for another 5 years, with the height of the pond reaching 47 mts., but a new ash pond is not ready due to a miscalculation of the requirements.
The AP Genco engineers miscalculated the need for acquiring additional area in Mulapadu village for starting a new pond, as the NTTPS began utilising dry fly ash to some extent by supplying to cement and brick units, but as things stand a 400-acre acquisition, with the help of the State government, has become essential.
Stop-gap proposal
There is an alternative proposal, as a stop-gap move, to increase the height of the existing pond to 50 metres as was done at NTPC Simhadri in Visakhapatnam. The existing ash pond is spread over 1,060 acres in Mulapadu village, and proposals to acquire another 400 acres adjacent to it in Mulapadu are with the AP Genco headquarters which is in a dialogue with the State government.
The cost of acquisition can be very high, and many of the people who own agriculture land comprising this identified area are against giving away their land or demand very high price for it. The NTTPS is supplying ash, which is a by-product of thermal power generation, free of cost to farmers.
However, it is not on a large scale. The pond ash should be judiciously used in agricultural purposes.
The farmers are using it to increase the yield in fields where the nutrient content is low.
It is pertinent to mention here that the human rights activists allege that the ash pond was not being watered as required by the law, resulting in dry ash flying all over the place and settling down on human habitations.
