Crops damaged, 15 cattle missing
BHOPAL: Toxic sludge from a National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plant in Madhya Pradesh’s Singrauli damaged crops over 30-acre land and left at least 15 cattle missing following the breach of a fly ash dyke on Sunday evening, police and residents said on Monday.
This is the second such incident in Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh’s coal belt since August 7 when a fly ash pond at Essar’s Mahan Power Plant breached and damaged crops of about 500 farmers across three villages. District authorities have asked Essar to pay a compensation of Rs 50 lakh to the farmers.
Singrauli police superintendent Abhijeet Ranjan said the fly ash dyke breached inside the NTPC plant and the Central Industrial Security Force personnel posted there were taking care of the situation. He said that the NTPC will do the evaluation of the loss.
Suresh Pandey, a resident of Chandal near the plant, said they had informed the NTPC about the possibility of the breach about 15 days ago but the company did not pay any attention. “Our crops have been damaged and over 100 cattle have been washed away,” he said.
Another Chandal resident, D L Pandey, said the sludge has got mixed up with their drinking water that comes from the Rihand Dam. “The water supply to at least half-a-dozen villages in the area has been affected.”
Lalmani Pandey, a spokesperson for the NTPC, said that the breach was confined to their premises. “Restoration work is going on,” he said while denying claims of losses to life or property. Singrauli collector K V S Chaudhary said they were yet to find any cattle in the rescue operation until Monday evening. “As the rescue operation is still on, we are not denying their [villagers’] claims.” He added the district administration and the NTPC were conducting a survey to evaluate the losses.
Ashwani Kumar Dubey, a lawyer who has filed petitions in the Supreme Court over Singrauli pollution, said the sludge has spread over an area of five-seven kilometre radius. “Ash-laden toxic sludge from the plant has damaged the crops. Drinking water has become highly contaminated,” he said.
A National Green Tribunal report in 2018 called fly ash disposal in Singrauli’s industrial belt a major concern. It said abandoned ash ponds were not being scientifically rehabilitated. The report found discharges from the coal mining areas in the region had contaminated the Rihand Dam, which is a major drinking water source in Singrauli.