The country’s biggest ceramics cluster at Morbi, Wankaner, Gujarat is emerging as India’s largest hub for the consumption of natural gas, the cleaner fuel that has replaced coal in less than a month, due to intervention of the National gas Tribunal (NGT). Of the 900 odd units there, NGT found that nearly half were running on coal and ordered them to shut down. Today barring some 60-70 units, all have switched to natural gas. These units were shut down because of ruuning on coal gasifiers and they were directed to switch to natural gas if they wanted to continue operations. After a month long drive, gas consumption nearly doubled from 2.5 million metric standard cubic metres a day (mmscms), and is expected to rise to 8.5 mmscmd in the near future.
The change is palpable. According to NGT committee report, the average particulate matter of 2.5 microns (PM 2.5) reading was 289.61 μg/m3 , nearly 5 times higher than the permissible limit. Daily coaltar generation in Morbi was found to be 8 lakh kg per day. After the NGT action, PM 2.5 levels plummeted to 27.8 μg/m3 as per the data of Air Visual Global Particulate Matter. The tribunal had formed a committee of experts to examine pollution issues in Morbi. Units were using coal gasifiers as coal was cheap on the black market and it helped them lower production figures to evade taxes.
Matter Referenced:
Maulik Pathak and Nimesh Khakhariya, Times of India, Ahmedabad, Thursday, 6th June, 2019.
By: Dr. Bhawana Asnani.
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