STOP PRESS: On 14 February 2025, local people set fire to vehicles of the Mahan coal-power plant following an accident in which a coal-laden truck allegedly ran over and killed two commuters. According to media reports, the people were angered over police inaction against the power plant, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The vehicles were stopped by hundreds of enraged locals on a stretch of road between the Suliyari coal mine and the power plant. According to reports, at least six buses, rented by the company to ferry employees of the coal plant, and two trucks were allegedly gutted in the fire. One of the trucks had been loaded with coal. The crowd blocked the roads, delaying the arrival of police. Even after police reached the spot, they were confronted by angry locals.
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गडाखाड बाजार में अदानी की गाड़ियों में लगी आग
This is the same Adani coal-power plant for which the Modi government approved a huge expansion in January 2025. The plant, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, is undergoing an expansion of almost four-fold, despite failing to abide by conditions placed on an earlier environmental approval. Required studies have yet to be carried out on the existing plant’s impacts on the health of the local population and on the area’s wildlife. The increasing congestion of local roads by convoys of coal trucks have raised tensions to boiling point. Nevertheless, the green light has been given for the Bandhaura / Mahan coal-power plant to add four new units totalling 3200 MW. The expansion will make it one of Adani’s hungriest consumers of coal.
Basic facts and figures about the project
- Project: Bandhaura Thermal Power Plant, often referred to as the Mahan Thermal Power Project, and also as the Singrauli Thermal Power Plant
- Company and project proponent: Mahan Energen Limited (an Adani-owned company)
- Location: Bandhaura, Nagwa, Karsua, Khairahi in the Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh
- Current capacity: 2 units of 600 MW each: 1200 MW total
- Current status: Operational; construction occurring for addition of 2 units of 800 MW each (Environmental Clearance granted on 2 August 2023)
- Proposed expansion: Addition of 2 more units of 800 MW each (Environmental clearance recommended on 24 January 2025; total expansion of 3.2 GW)
- Total project cost (including cost of existing unit and unit under construction): Rs 21,600 crore (US $2.5 billion)
- Cost of expansion: Rs 13,863 crore (US $1.6 billion)
Less than three years after Adani Group acquired a financially distressed 1200 Mega Watt (MW) coal-power plant in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the Modi government has allowed its expansion by almost four-fold. The recommendation to increase its capacity to 4400 MW came in the last week of January 2025, despite the project proponent failing to fulfil several key environmental conditions.
Recent AdaniWatch articles on this coal-hungry development have covered the transfer of a lucrative power contract to it; its first huge expansion; and the awarding of a nearby coal block to Adani despite a low bid.
On 2 August 2023, the Modi government provided environmental clearance to expand the capacity of the Bandhaura power plant from 1200 to 2800 MW by adding two units of 800 MW each. And in January 2025, a government committee recommended another 1600 MW expansion, which would take the power complex’s capacity to 4400 MW.
The recommendation was made by Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (‘the ministry’) in a meeting held on 24 January. Two more units of 800 MW each will now be added. This comes even as construction work is underway for the expansion to 2800 MW.
The capital cost of the project (including the first 1600 MW expansion, now under construction) is Rs 21,600 crore (US $2.5 billion). The capital cost of the expansion approved in January 2025 is Rs 13,863 crore (US $1.6 billion). The Bandhaura plant is located close to the Singrauli coalfields where the Adani Group owns a clutch of coal blocks which are in various stages of development.
Many environmental conditions, which were imposed on the project in August 2023 for the first expansion, are yet to be complied with. These include the condition to conduct an epidemiological study plant to assess the adverse impacts of pollution on the population living within a 5-km radius of the power plant. A detailed ecological study of wildlife, forests and fisheries in the vicinity of the project site is also pending. The project proponent was asked to carry out these studies every two years from the granting of the previous environmental approval on 2 August 2023.
Land from four villages – Bandhaura, Khairahi, Karsualal, Nagwa – was acquired for construction of the power plant. People from these villages live in an area that covers 473 hectares. In the past, these communities have complained about pollution of farmlands from fly ash disposed by the power plant. Bandhaura (located only 200 m from the project), Khairahi (500 m), Karsualal (1 km) and Nagwa (1 km) fall within the district’s Mada tehsil (an administrative unit).
In accordance with the previous approval, the project proponent was required not only to conduct the above-mentioned epidemiological study but was also to take ‘necessary measures’ for the amelioration of project-related problems suffered by the communities ‘in consultation with district administration’. However, in a letter dated 9 December 2024, the regional office of the state’s pollution control board, the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (‘Board’), informed the ministry that the epidemiological study had yet to be initiated.
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As part of the process of environmental-impact assessment, a public hearing was conducted on 10 October 2024 to obtain feedback from local communities regarding the proposed expansion of the coal-burning plant from 2800 MW to 4400 MW. However, details of the proceedings of the hearing have not yet been uploaded by the Board to its website.
Similarly, the Board told the ministry through its letter that the detailed ecological monitoring and survey to assess the impacts of the project on the local environment had yet to be initiated. The letter stated: ‘Study on local ecology is yet to be started. It is recommended to assess the local biodiversity and identify the indicator species for monitoring and evaluation in periodical basis within the study area, i.e., area covering 10-km distance from project boundary’.
In response to the Board’s observations, the project proponent has given the assurance that the reports will be finalised before the completion of the stipulated two-year period and that necessary action will be taken in accordance with the study’s eventual findings.
The water requirement of the existing power plant is 169,863 cubic meters per day. This is being extracted from the reservoir of the Rihand Dam, a multipurpose hydro-electric project located in a border district of the adjoining north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Once the first expansion is done, an additional quantity of 96,000 cubic meters of water per day will be required. When the second expansion takes place, the total water requirement will again increase by 78,219 cubic meters per day, which will be met again from this dam’s reservoir. The project proponent has already acquired permission for withdrawal of this additional water from the reservoir.
However, given the well-known scarcity of fresh water in the region, frequent droughts and a resulting farm crisis, the ministry had asked the project proponent in the previous letter of approval, to consider sourcing treated sewage water from local municipal bodies to meet the needs of the power plant. The letter dated 2 August 2023 stated that ‘project proponent shall explore the use of treated sewage water from the Sewage Treatment Plant of Municipality / local bodies / similar organization located within 50-km radius of the proposed power project to minimize the water drawl (sic.) from surface water bodies.’
However, the Board said in its letter that the project proponent had ‘yet to identify the availability of sewage water nearby’ and had not yet explored the feasibility of using treated sewage water in the plant. The project proponent said in its response that there exists no sewage treatment plant at present within a 50-km radius of the project site. It undertook to change its source of water to sewage-treatment plants that might be established in the future.
The proponent also assured government bodies that it will install systems to contain dangerous emissions of sulphurous emissions from its chimney. These Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) systems have not been installed at the plant within the timelines specified by the ministry.
During a field visit by this correspondent to Bandhaura in the summer of 2023, local communities said that trucking of coal along roads was causing large-scale pollution of the air and water in the region. In absence of a dedicated railway siding, coal is being transported to the power plant on roads which have dense populations on either side, including residences and markets. Fugitive coal dust from loaded trucks is also damaging the forests through which the coal trucks travel.
The existing 1200 MW plant consumes 5.5 million tons of coal per annum. This is sourced from the Suliyari coal mine (for which the Adani Group is the Mine Developer and Operator), belonging to the public-sector enterprise of the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh – the Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation. Coal from Suliyari is transported to the project site along 32 km of road. Some coal is also being sourced from the government-owned coal producing company, Coal India Limited (CIL), through e-Auctions. Coal from these sources is transported using trucks from the railway siding in Gajara Bahara which is 16.2 km from the power plant.
‘Permission for the humungous expansion of the project has been allowed without giving any thought,’ a local campaigner, who chose to remain anonymous, told this correspondent. ‘The expansion will necessitate more coal consumption.
‘Road trucking of coal will increase accordingly, as will the associated environmental pollution. A survey should have been conducted to identify the potential impacts of coal transportation by road.
‘It is not known whether the roads will withstand the pressure of additional truckloads of coal. Motor accidents and traffic jams are already the order of the day on stretches of roads on which this coal is trucked’.
The Adani Group has said that after the instalment of the first two units of 800 MW each, an additional 6.85 million tons per annum (MTPA) of coal will be sourced from the Dhirauli mine (an Adani-owned coal mine in the Singrauli coalfields which is to be operationalised soon) and through e-auction. Similarly, it has stated that another 6.5 MTPA coal will be required for the additional two 800 MW units that have just been approved. This coal will be procured from the Mara II Mahan mine of Singrauli, which is also expected to be operational soon. The Adani Group has said that the most of the 13.35 MTPA of additional coal will be transported via a conveyer belt. This conveyer belt from Dhirauli coal mine to the project site will be 4.6-km-long and will be completed by December 2026, the project proponent has assured. The remaining coal will be transported via railways.
The Bandhaura plant belongs to Mahan Energen Limited, which the Adani Group acquired from another Indian corporate conglomerate, the Essar Group, in March 2022. In March 2024, billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance India Limited (RIL) acquired a 26% stake in a 600 MW unit of the existing Bandhaura plant. In December 2024, Mahan Energen fully merged with an Adani-owned subsidiary, Stratatech Mineral Resources Limited, which owns the Dhirauli coal mine in the Singrauli coalfields.
In August 2019, when the power project was under the ownership of the Essar Group, a breach in its ash pond resulted in flooding of large swathes of farmland and residential areas. As per reports, nearly 500 farmers suffered loss of crops due to flooding of their fields with a slurry of toxic fly ash. Five children were trapped inside their home during the flooding and were rescued with the help of the police and local administration. The company blamed sabotage for the breach in the dyke of the fly-ash pond following heavy rains. The district administration of Singrauli, on the other hand, found that the accident occurred due to negligence on the part of the power plant in maintaining the fly-ash pond.
Penalties were imposed upon the Essar Group and compensation was paid to some of the affected population. Locals fear that the increase in generation of fly ash that will arise from the project’s expansion could wreak similar havoc in the future.
The project proponent has claimed that in the past three years, the power plant generated 2.535 million tons of fly ash, out of which 2.143 million tons have been utilised for construction purposes such as road building, brick making and landfilling, in accordance with the guidelines of the government of India. As per reports of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the government agency in India responsible for planning and policy formulation in the power sector, the total amount of fly ash generated by the Bandhaura plant in 2021-22 was 0.836 million tons, out of which roughly 0.213 million tons (only 25%) was utilised for construction.
However, according to details furnished to the ministry by the project proponent, the utilisation percentage shot up to a mammoth 100.2% (including legacy ash from previous years) in 2022-23. This is corroborated by the annual report of the CEA for that particular year. For the year 2023-24, the Adani Group has claimed that 1.428 million tons of fly ash were generated, while 1.480 million tons (that is, 103.72%) were successfully utilized for constructive purposes. It has claimed that, at present, only 0.623 million tons of fly ash await removal from the ash pond. The company is not proposing to create a new ash pond following the expansion.
Roughly, 6.51 million tons of fly ash will be generated per annum following the expansion of the project to 4400 MW. This waste will be contained in storage silos. At present the project proponent has six large silos. It has planned the construction of an additional six silos for the expansion project.
