India improves fly ash utilisation by nearly 50% in a decade

New Delhi: The utilisation of fly ash has increased from 66.6 million ton (MT) in 2008-09 to 132 MT in 2017-18, marking an improvement of 50 percent in a decade. On the other hand, the percentage of fly ash utilisation has increased from 57.11 percent in 2008-09 to 67 percent in 2017-18, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar told the Lok Sabha on Friday.

GST reduced to 5% on fly ash

In a response filed in the Lower House of Parliament, Javadekar said that the government has reduced GST rates from 12-18 percent to 5 percent on fly ash, fly ash bricks and fly ash aggregates with 90 percent or more fly ash content. The Ministry of Power has launched a web-based monitoring system and a Fly Ash mobile application named 'ASH TRACK' to facilitate information exchange between TPPs and the users, the minister said.

The CPCB asked states to monitor compliance last year

In a letter dated November 8, 2018, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had directed all State Pollution Control Boards and Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) to ensure compliance of relevant provisions of the fly ash notification, Javadekar said. The letter asked states to ensure that brick manufacturing units, agencies and authorities undertaking construction of building, roads, fly overs or approving its design within 300 km from coal/lignite based thermal power plants (TPPs) and mines within 50 Km from TPPs by December 31, 2018 are utilising the ash generated.

The body had also directed them to coordinate with the state governments so as to ensure that state-level monitoring committee meets at least once in every quarter.

The history of the Fly Ash notification

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) had issued the first Fly Ash notification on September 14, 1999. It was subsequently amended in 2003, 2009 and 2016 in order to enhance fly ash utilisation in the various infrastructure development projects.