Badarpur plant to reopen as city air quality improves
The operations of the power plant have been allowed, but with a condition that it will be permanently closed from July.
New Delhi: As Delhi and its surrounding region’s air quality showed signs of improvement, the EPCA lifted the measures taken under severe category, thus allowing the opening of Badarpur power plant and operation of diesel generator sets from Thursday.
According to an assessment report by Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), data from the period October 1, 2017 to February 25, 2018 points to a slight improvement in air quality levels.
The number of days in the severe category have decreased per month in comparison to previous years except January 2018, while 10 per cent of the days were still in the severe category.
But in February, 16 cent of days were in the moderately polluted category, as compared to eight per cent in the previous year.
The authority has stated that measures in the moderate to poor category, such as ban on garbage burning, mechanised sweeping and the like under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) will now come into force from Thursday. The GRAP has an advisory for each category of air pollution — emergency, severe, very poor, poor, and moderate.
Measures such as closing of the Badarpur power plant was taken in October last year when the air pollution levels in the city was in the severe category.
The operations of the power plant have been allowed, but with a condition that it will be permanently closed from July.