India Indigenous People Coal
Fearing toxic residues, locals fight an Adani coal-power project
An Adani company’s plan to expand the capacity of a coal-power plant in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh has worried the local people, who have already been hard hit by pollution from nearby mines and coal-power plants. In July 2024, at a formal public hearing about the proposed expansion of Adani’s power plant near Raigarh, villagers protested against the project. The expanded plant will generate up to 4 million tonnes of coal-ash residues each year. Meanwhile, the Adani company concerned has been fined US $740,000 for polluting the area through trucking of coal on local roads.
Basic facts and figures
- Name of project: Raigarh Thermal Power Plant
- Owner: Raigarh Energy Generation Limited (subsidiary of Adani Power Limited)
- Location: Bade Bhandar – Chhotte Bhandar, Pussore, District: Raigarh, Chhattisgarh
- Capacity: 600 MW
- Proposed Expansion: Addition of 2 units of 800 MW each (total expansion of 1.6 GW)
- Total project cost (including cost of existing unit): Rs 16,500 crore (US $2 billion)
- Cost of expansion: Rs 13,600 crore (US $1.6 billion)
- Status: Operational (expansion pending)
A significant section of the local community of Raigarh in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh has expressed grave reservations about the proposed expansion of an Adani-owned coal-fired power plant. In a public hearing held on 12 July 2024, hundreds of local people who will be affected by the project registered strong protests against the expansion on the grounds that it will lead to an increase in generation of toxic fly ash, posing an ecological threat to the region.
Raigarh is already suffering the impacts of toxic fly ash as well as other pollution due to the many coal-power plants and coal mines in the district. The hearing pertained to the proposed expansion of Adani’s 600MW coal-based power plant in Pussore tehsil (an administrative unit). The business conglomerate is looking to expand the project to 2200 MW by the addition of two units of 800 MW each – an expansion of over 250%. In August 2023, the Modi government gave the go-ahead for the Adani Group subsidiary, Adani Power Limited, to carry out a study to assess the potential environmental impacts of the expansion, proposed at a cost of Rs 13,600 crores (US $1.6 billion).
‘Most areas of the district are already reeling under environmental pollution caused by existing thermal plants and coal mines,’ Raigarh-based campaigner, Rajesh Tripathy, told this correspondent. ‘Fly ash that is generated from burning of coal is disposed of recklessly by almost all thermal power plants here.
‘There have been instances when we have witnessed dumping of fly ash into the confluence of two major rivers of the region. We have complained to the local administration but there is no monitoring.’
At least four villages – Chhote Bhandar, Bade Bhandar, Sarvani and Mali Bhanuna – will be directly affected by the expansion. The total area of the project is 355.71 hectares, including the existing facility of 600 MW. The rivers Mahanadi and its tributary Mand flow near the project site. While the Mahanadi River is 3.5 km south of the project site, the Mand River is just 1.4 km south-west.
‘An increase in coal consumption in the plant will increase fly-ash generation and the consequent pollution’ said Tripathy. ‘Not only have farming and forest yield been depleted due to the menace of fly ash, but water bodies have also been affected.
‘The livelihood of the district’s entire population, beyond the four affected villages, is at stake. The government should have waited for the results of a current study to determine whether Raigarh can bear the load of pollution from more developments before embarking on environmental approval for the coal plant’s expansion.’
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A carrying capacity study is at present underway through Chhattisgarh’s pollution control body, the Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board, to determine whether the region can cope with new mines and coal-power plants. This study is being conducted through the prestigious Indian Institute of Technologies, located in the cities of Mumbai and Bhilai. The study, however, is not being conducted in the area where Adani plans to extend its power plant, the Pussore block, but in parts of two separate administrative blocks, Gharghoda and Tamnar.
Most of the people whose livelihoods have been impacted by fly-ash pollution belong to tribal communities. Special provisions of the Constitution of India are applicable in the governance of the district because the majority of its population comprises tribal families. But local communities have time and again alleged that their interests are sidelined for the benefit of corporates that own the power plants and the mines.
According to a study finalized in October 2019 at the behest of India’s premier environmental court, the National Green Tribunal, the total quantity of fly ash generated from 12 power plants in the blocks of Tamnar and Gharghoda alone was a whopping 6,628,283 tons per annum.
The Adani Group’s own record of disposal of fly ash from its existing facility is not encouraging. As per the latest report of Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the apex electricity advisory body of the Indian government, Adani Power Limited properly disposed of only 35.76% of the total fly ash it generated from the plant from April to September 2022. The report states that the power plant generated 0.5673 million tons of fly ash during the six-month period out of which only 0.2029 million tons could be diverted for use by industry and in infrastructure works as per guidelines set by the government of India. The remainder of the fly ash was added to the legacy waste of the coal plant. The report further states that 2.44 million tons of legacy fly ash is lying unutilised in the vicinity of the power plant.
India’s apex pollution-control body has a set of detailed guidelines for disposal of fly ash produced by power plants. The Indian government had set a deadline for coal-power plants to dispose of all legacy ash in prescribed eco-friendly ways by December 2017. However, this deadline was extended by the government through a notification issued in April 2022.
The Adani Group subsidiary is not planning to construct a new fly-ash pond for the expansion project. It has disclosed that it will use the existing ash-dyke area covering 72.5 hectares for storing the additional quantities of toxic waste. This waste will be stored in the form of slurry.
‘APL [Adani Power Limited], Raigarh has not envisaged Ash Pond for proposed expansion as it is estimated that the ash pond stock will be utilised by 50% approx. by the time 2X800 MW commissioning is completed and the same empty space in existing Ash Pond will be used for unutilised ash,’ the project proponent stated in the executive summary report of its environmental impact assessment.
Discrepancies in data have emerged in various documents prepared by the Adani Group subsidiary regarding total fly-ash generation from the plant’s expansion. When seeking terms of reference for the environment impact assessment study from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (‘the ministry’), the project proponent disclosed that the two additional units will generate fly ash to the tune of 3.83 million tons per annum (MTPA). However, in the environment impact assessment study compiled later, it said that the two units will generate 11,330 tons of fly ash per day. This works out to 4,135,450 tons of fly ash per annum – approximately 4.16 MTPA.
According to the project report, the annual coal requirement of the two new units would be about 8.15 MTPA as per. This coal will be transported to the power plant for ‘30 kms via the road network from the nearest railway facility’, according to disclosures made by the project proponent. A dedicated railway siding for the project is still under development because of delays in land-acquisition proceedings. In April 2020, the ministry allowed a one-year extension to the deadline by which the project proponent was to end transport of coal on local roads. This new deadline passed some time ago. In January 2023, penalties were imposed by the Chhattisgarh government upon various power plants, including the one owned by the Adani Group, for causing pollution through transportation of coal by road. The penalty that was imposed upon the Adani Group was US $740,000.
But a clutch of companies, including Adani Power Limited, was successful in obtaining an interim stay upon payment of penalties from the high court of Chhattisgarh. This case was disposed of by the high court on 6 May 2024. However, the court is yet to upload a copy of the order on its website.
In an article published in January 2023 following a field visit to Raigarh, AdaniWatch highlighted how people living near the power plant are already suffering the effects of coal dust, other pollutants, noise and dangerous congestion of local roads from the existing 600 MW unit of the power plant.
