Union ministers solution to flyash trouble: Make bricks

As Jethmalani puts it: Kumaramangalam creates the problem; it forms a headache for Prabhu, while his ministry, that of Urban Affairs, offers a way out.

Each year the coal-based thermal power plants in the country produces around 85 million tonnes of flyash, which gets dumped just about anywhere, creating a huge environmental hazard.

At a meeting this afternoon, attended by the three ministers, each assisted by a clutch of bureaucrats, representatives of such public sector undertakings as NTPC and HUDCO, the government has decided that NTPC would set up flyash brick-making units, which would then be used in preference to regular bricks in public housing projects, road construction and other activity requiring blended cement.

quot;To begin with, the NTPC will set up two large flyash brick production plants at Badarpur and Dadri,quot; said Kumaramangalam. The two plants are to be inaugurated next month by the three ministers.

For starters, the foundation stones for the plant will be made of flyash bricks.

At present, the NTPC is utilising only one per cent of the flyash for making bricks. But the decision reached today is that over the next ten years over 90 per cent of the flyash would be converted into bricks.

Environmental activists have been propagating the need to use flyash for bricks since years. The Environment Ministry too has been exploring the option for long, and in May 1998, a draft notification was issued.

The notification will now be reissued with some modifications, Jethmalani said.

The flyash bricks are just as durable if not more than regular bricks, and can find a myriad uses in the construction industry, says HUDCO chairman V Suresh.

The private sector, however, has not been too enthusiastic about using the flyash bricks, chiefly because of transportation and cost factors. But the ministers are confident that the bricks would find a market. quot;If the price is right, there will be buyers,quot; said Kumaramangalam.