The Mystery of the “non-functional” power plant in the heart of Delhi

A coal-based power plant in the heart of Delhi could be making things worse for the city's air quality.

WrittenBy:Arunabh Saikia
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Welcome to the curious case of the pollution spewing Rajghat Power Plant. A coal-based thermal power plant, which, according to news reports  – and remarkably the governing party’s election manifesto – is non-functional, but ask officials and workers in the power plant, “we never stopped operations”, is the unanimous answer.

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It is right across the road from the Delhi Secretariat. So it is highly unlikely that the new government, which has ambitious plans of employing solar energy to meet 20 per cent of the capital’s power requirements by 2025, hasn’t noticed it bellowing smoke. While news reports like this say that it is shut, a visit confirms that it is still very much operational, emitting abundant amounts of effluents. Notably, the Aam Aadmi Party’s road map for clean power also promises an “overhaul” or a “revamp” of “the polluting and non-functional Rajghat power plant” (emphasis added).

“We close down occasionally for maintenance, but have never completely shut down operations in the recent past,” said an official of the Indraprashtha Gas Power Generation Company Limited (IPGCL), which runs the Rajghat Power Plant.  Workers in the power plant also confirmed to Newslaundry that the power plant has always been operational and has not been shut from October as newspaper reports suggest.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Rishiraj Bhati, Public Relation Officer, Delhi Transco Limited said the power plant has been kept functional because the Bawana Power Plant hasn’t been functioning at full capacity. “There is an acute gas shortage in the Bawana Power Plant and there is no option but to keep the Rajghat Power Plant functional,” he said.

So was the Rajghat Power Plant ever shut?

According to Bhati, the power plant has never been shut. “Yes, there was a move to shut the plant in 2012, but it didn’t materialise,” he told Newslaundry. Bhati said that a unit may have been shut down for some time, but the plant as a whole was never shut.

According to reports, the government, in a bid to reduce pollution, had also proposed to shut the plant during the Commonwealth Games in 2010. However, even then the move had run into rough waters as the power plant provided power to the adjacent Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, one of the venues of the Games.

When asked about environmental clearances, Bhati told Newslaundry that the power plant adhered to all environmental standards. That claim, however, must be taken with a pinch of salt considering a recent study of coal-based power plants by the Centre for Science And Environment, New Delhi, reveals that the sector’s performance is way below global benchmarks. Also, India’s air pollution standards are extremely lax. Particulate matter (PM) norms in India currently stand at 150-350 mg/Nm3 (milligram per normal metre cube) compared to Chinese norms of 30 mg/Nm3.

In fact, a coal-based power plant in the heart of the city merits even more critical scrutiny of possible environmental hazards. According to a recent study, smaller particulate matter (PM2.5) that are more likely to kill because they go deeper into the lungs in Delhi are routinely 15 times above levels considered safe by the World Health Organisation, making Delhi’s air arguably the most unsafe in the world.

Apart from a very evident problem of air pollution, the Rajghat Power Plant is also notorious for dumping arsenic into the Yamuna. According to a report on arsenic pollution in the Yamuna released by the Geology Department of Delhi University, the Rajghat Power Plant dumps 5.5 tonnes of arsenic in the Yamuna every year. Prolonged exposure to arsenic is a major cause of cancer and heart ailments.

The official line is that the Rajghat Power Plant, in spite of its detrimental environmental impact, is a necessary evil.  However, this is an argument that has been used for almost too long now.

The setting up of the Bawana Power Plant – a gas-based power plant – was finished in 2012 at a cost of Rs 5,400 crore. The idea was to phase out the consistently troubled Rajghat Power Plant with the Bawana Power Plant, which has a capacity of 1500 megawatts (MW). Current data from the state load dispatch centre, though, reveals that the Bawana Power Plant is generating less than 300 MW.

While the gas crisis crippling the Bawana Power Plant is genuine, continuing with the Rajghat Power Plant, which is often down for maintenance (real time data at the time of filing this report shows zero production) and can generate only 100 MW at full capacity, makes very little sense economically. And even less, environmentally.  The ambiguous nature of this functioning “non-functional” power plant remains a mystery to this reporter after having worked on this report for a while. What is unambiguous however is the alarmingly hazardous air quality of Delhi and this power plant’s contribution to it.

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