BHUBANESWAR: The Orissa State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) on Tuesday gave conditional clearance to power major NTPC to restart generation from its super thermal power station at Kaniha. The Board which issued closure notice to NTPC on June 28 asking the latter to shut down four units of the stage-II Kaniha power plant for its failure to implement the ash management system on Tuesday kept the notice in abeyance till August 31. NTPC was allowed to generate power from the four units of Kaniha in view of the measures taken by the national PSU to reconstruct the breached ash ponds, said OSPCB member-secretary Siddhant Dash. The decision to keep the closure notice in abeyance was taken as per the recommendation of the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, which was assigned the job to verify interim measures taken by NTPC to restore the ash pond, he said. NTPC had given a firm commitment to OSPCB to restore the second ash pond of stage-I by mid-August. Regional Executive Director, NTPC, R Venkateswaran and SR Gandhi, professor of IIT-Chennai and consultant to NTPC for design of ash dyke, last week met Forest and Environment Minister Debi Prasad Mishra and senior officers of the Pollution Control Board. Faced with power shortage due to closure of the four NTPC units, four southern states brought pressure on the Ministry of Power to meet their shortfall from the central pool. Chairman-cum-Managing Director of NTPC Arup Roy Choudhury met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik requesting him to lift the closure notice in view of the power crisis in the southern part of the country. Choudhury said NTPC had readied a Long- Term Action Plan for ash management of the 6x500 MW Talcher super thermal power station. Of the 3,000 MW capacity of Talcher super thermal power station, 2,000 MW has been dedicated to four southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
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