The Kolkata Bench of National Green Tribunal on Monday asked the West Bengal Power Development Corporation why Bakreshwar thermal power plant should not be closed down as it is running without consent to operate from West Bengal Pollution Control Board. 

Directing the state government to reply in four weeks time, the NGT Bench of Justice Pratap Roy (retired) and P C Misra asked this after the state counsel could not give a satisfactory reply during the day as to why the government should not pay a penalty of Rs.5 crore for polluting Bakreshwar and Chandrabhaga rivers by the spillover of fly ash from Bakershwar thermal power plant. 

On 13 July, the NGT had asked the state government why the latter should not pay a penalty of Rs.5 crore for polluting Bakreshwar and Chandrabhaga rivers by the spillover of fly ash from Bakreshwar thermal power plant. The tribunal directed the state government to explain its position, on Monday. 

The NGT’s query to the state government emanates from a November, 2014 petition of environmental activist Subhas Dutta. The petition was moved in the backdrop of the thermal power plant setting up two more 210 MW units in 2008 without making another fly ash pond beside the one which had been made in 2001. Way back in 2001, three 210 MW units were set up at Bakreshwar. 

The capacity of the fly ash pond for these units was estimated to last till 2016, it was learnt. But the capacity of this pond was reduced owing to a rise in fly ash content in the coal. 

Several orders were passed after Dutta moved the NGT. Both the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) gave reports to the tribunal stating that fly ash was spilling into the rivers and damaging aquatic life as well as affecting farming in the adjacent river banks. 

The tribunal further asked the state government to state what was the capacity of the fly ash pond in 2008 when the generation capacity of the thermal power plant was enhanced. 

The state has also been asked to explain why the generation capacity of the power plant was raised without building another fly ash pond. 

The thermal power plant authority was directed to remove fly ash from the river bed and its banks before the onset of monsoon. But the process of removal of fly ash is yet to be completed and the damage to aquatic ecology and flora and fauna on the river banks continues.