With the environment ministry once again extending the various deadlines for thermal power plants to switch to pollution-control technologies, at least four of 12 plants within a 300km radius of Delhi now have time till December 2024 to adopt green technologies. For the remaining eight power plants, the deadline of December 2024 has been further pushed to 2026.
Despite these timelines being revised multiple times since the first notification in 2015, currently only two thermal power plants within a 300km of Delhi – Mahatma Gandhi TPS (Haryana) and Dadri TPS (Uttar Pradesh) — have FGD, which is a set of technologies used to remove sulphur dioxide from exhaust flue gases of fossil fuel power plants.
The latest notification for extension was issued on September 5, around 18 months after the previous notification. It has also extended the timelines of some thermal power plants in the country to switch to clean technology till 2027.
