‘Shut Badarpur plant for better air quality’

NEW DELHI: What if all the cars were taken off the roads of Delhi for 17 years?

As you reach for your green calculator for the impact this will have on the air quality, oil and gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan would like you to know that the same results can be achieved by shutting down the power plant at Badarpur, on the edge of Delhi, for just a year.

All that the Arvind Kejriwal government needs to do is to stop buying power from this National Thermal Power Corporation plant, which runs on coal, and switch to its own plant at Bawana, which runs on natural gas.

“You do this odd-even drama. I am presenting the facts here. Why do you go after symbolism?” Pradhan said in an interview with HT.

A study released last year by the Centre for Science and Environment, the NGO, said the Badarpur facility was the most polluting power plant in the country. Pradhan said the Bawana plant, which runs on liquefied natural gas (LNG), will emit a hundredth of what Badarpur does.

Natural gas is considered one of the cleanest-burning fuels for producing power, coal the dirtiest.

In June, Pradhan offered the Delhi government LNG at a price that would have helped the Bawana plant produce power at ₹5 to ₹6 a unit. But the Delhi government reportedly rejected the offer, and asked for even cheaper LNG. The Bawana plant now runs at just a sixth of its capacity.

“The Delhi government wants domestic gas, but that is distributed according to a priority list and Delhi gets its share,” Pradhan said.

“As of today, this LNG will get you cheaper electricity. The cost may rise tomorrow, just like the prices of petrol and diesel change these days,” the Union minister added.