Supreme court rejects power companies’ bid to extend emissions deadline

CHENNAI: The Supreme Court rejected a request by power producers to extend a deadline to install equipment to cut emissions by two years to 2024, according to an order uploaded on the court’s website late on Monday.
India has a phased plan for plants to comply with emissions standards, which involve installing Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) units that cut emissions of sulphur dioxide – known to cause lung diseases.
More than half of India’s coal-fired power plants ordered to retrofit equipment to curb sulphur oxide emissions are set to miss deadlines which go up to the end of 2022.
“We are not inclined to allow the prayer made in the application,” the Supreme Court said in the order.
Power plant operators have blamed costs and technical difficulties for missing an earlier deadline at the end of 2017 and then again at the end of 2019.
The Association of Power Producers (APP) – a lobby group for thermal plants which filed the petition in the court seeking a two-year extension – said the court declined to grant any blanket extension.