Jharia holds the largest coal belt in India and is also one of the largest in Asia. The unscientific open cast mining has caused the fire to set alight for a century, releasing many types of toxic gases.

Peter Caton shot the story and Cris Aoki made the video / concept.

Dr Prakash Lalwani talks about the health risks of coal power

Dr Prakash Lalwani, M.B.B.S, M.S, is a general physician and the founder of Wakewar Hospital in Parli, where he has been practicing for eight years. Less than 2km from Parli town is Parli Thermal Power Station, a 920MW coal-fired power station that has been operating – and expanding – for nearly forty years. The plant in its current form uses 1100 metric tonnes of coal per day, producing 3500 metric tonnes of fly ash per day and an unspecified amount of waste gases. Construction work for another 250MW unit is underway. Like many other coal-fired thermal power plants, Parli TPS has been criticised for its lack of proper waste management, which means much of its waste fly ash is blown from the dump to surrounding areas. We asked Dr Lalwani about the health consequences of living in these areas.

What are the health problems associated with living near Parli Thermal Power Station?

There are three major types of health problems associated. The first are lung problems. [Ash consists of] very minor particles, which go inside the lungs and block the bronchioles, and cause Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (C.O.P.D), bronchial asthma, things like that. Bronchial asthma is seen more often. Obviously pollution is not the only factor causing lung disease, but C.O.P.D lowers the resistance of the lungs to secondary infections such as Tuberculosis. A physician in this area performed a survey that showed a seven-fold increase in lung disease in our area over a five-year period. This is a result of air pollution, which is produced by the thermal power station and now also by the cement factories which have started up around it. The lung conditions are definitely associated with this ash.

The second type is skin problems – chronic skin diseases have definitely increased here. All the people who work on the fly ash ponds have skin problems – eczema, allergic dermatitis. As the ash is mixed with water they can get fungal infections too. The chances of skin cancer are there too, in the long term.

The third thing is allergies. I haven’t performed clinical studies, but I’ve been seeing these problems in my patients for the last ten years, and the number of patients with these diseases has increased. If you talk to any physician over here they will also tell you the same thing.

How widespread are these problems?

The chances of developing diseases are of course higher for those who are in very close contact with the ash, but there is a risk for the people who stay near it too. If it’s not the rainy season, the ash is like a fog, covering a 20km area [around the power plant]. If you go up to my roof [here in the city] and mark a 1ft by 1ft square, by morning it will be studded with these particles. It stops for 8 hrs after it rains, but apart from that it is constant, and it’s worst in the summer.

The problem is that chronic diseases caused by this pollution don’t affect people immediately. It is a slow process. If I work in these conditions in 2009, I may only develop the diseases in 2014, for example. So it’s hard to hold the contractors responsible.

The drinking water for this area comes from a small open dam not more than 2km by air from the power plant, so I would say the water is definitely being affected. The vegetables we eat are also polluted by the chemicals contained within the fly ash.

What could improve the situation?

Legally, this thermal power plant should be eight kilometres away from the city. It is just touching now. Twenty-five years back, before the city expanded, it was still just two kilometres away. We understand it might not be feasible to shift the power station, but at least when they are building new plants they should be built a proper distance away from the city! It’s cheaper for them to build the power stations close to one another, as they won’t need as many managerial staff to run them. There’s also ample manpower and water near the cities.

The transportation of the materials is also not proper. Sprinkling is also required – legally – for the transportation of coal, but it is being transported dry, in open containers. Ash should be [transported] mixed with water, but it’s not being. If you come in summer season you will see the air looks like this is a hill station. But this is not a fog. It is the presence of that ash in the surroundings. For cement factories etc., the ash is directly taken from the power station site, with no water involved.

The people who work with the fly ash wear no protection – no boots, no face masks. Lack of awareness may be one reason for this, but the main reason is poverty. If a worker is earning Rs.100-150 per day, how will he pay for these things after he has provided for his family? So it should be the responsibility of the contractors, or the government, to see that they are given the proper protection.

What’s being done?

Nothing. Every 3-4 months, the local people hold a protest. On paper, you’ll find that there are boards displaying the amount of air pollution, like they display temperature in some places. But paper is the only place you’ll find these boards – they haven’t been implemented in reality.

How is the power situation here?

The power situation is the worst. At least what we demanded was: if we are giving electricity to half of Maharashtra, at least we should not have power cuts. We are suffering all types of losses. At least give us the benefit [of full power supply]. In towns, we have 6-10 hours of powercuts per day, depending on the season. In my farm, which is in a rural area just beside the thermal power station, I get power for only 4-6 hours per day. We use gensets instead, which run on diesel. Yet the leaves of the small amount of sugarcane I grow are grey with ash, even in rainy season.

Parli Thermal Power Plant and fly ash pond

“We did the protest because the situation had become really bad,” Shiavagi Ghayal explains in the quiet evening. The horizon is bathed in orange, and the setting sun has turned the still pools of water around him to mirror. It could almost be a beach, but the sand we’re standing on is ash, tens of feet deep and packed solid; the accumulated waste of years from Parli Thermal Power Station in Beed District, Maharashtra. The tall thin flues of the plant puff peacefully in the distance: from here the 24 hour rat-a-tat of machinery can’t be heard and the white fumes trail away into the evening sky like ribbons.

“Every day when it wasn’t raining, the wind was picking up the fly ash from this dump and bringing it into our homes,” continues Shiavagi. “It was coming into our kitchens and settling on food. By July, it was an inch and a half deep on surfaces. We’d sweep it away but it would build back up again within a day. People were developing allergies and the ash was making people’s eyes and skin red and sore. Children had stopped going to school because the minute they stepped outside they turned grey.”

Waste Ash from the Thermal Power Plant in Parli

Coal-fired power plants produce two types of waste: the gaseous is released into the air through flues, while the solid (fly ash) is mixed with water and transported via pipes to a dumping ground, where a pump house sucks out the excess water and sends it back to the plant to carry more waste. In theory, the dumping grounds should be ponds, the ash weighted down by water, but too much ash and too little water means the coal cinders are often dry and easily transported by the wind. Parli Thermal Power Station generates 3,500 metric tonnes of such fly ash per day and the 5000 residents of nearby Dadahari Wadgoan Village were becoming sick of it coating their homes and lives.

The village residents signed many petitions. As Sarpanch, Shiavagi was involved in presenting them to both the Environment Department of Maharashtra and Mahagenco – the government-owned company who operate the plant. He says the recipients always promised something would be done, but no action was ever taken. Then, shortly before the protest, two women in the village passed away.

“They had asthma and breathing in the fly ash had made it worse,” says Shiavagi. “The doctor had told them to stay away from it but what could they do? After their deaths we wrote again to Mahagenco saying we believed they had died because of the fly ash, but again there was no reply and nothing changed.”

The breaking point came at the end of summer 2009. All doors and windows in Dadahari Wadgoan had to be shut against the constant onslaught of ash, which in the middle of July made living conditions unbearably hot. Despite the village’s proximity to the power station, like many rural communities their power supply is intermittent and fans would rarely be working. The school building had no electric light, so with the shutters closed it was too dark to teach.

A panchayat meeting was called, and it was agreed the situation couldn’t go on. A group of 10-15 men angrily suggested going down to the pump house. More and more began to agree with them and eventually a mob of 400-500 set out for the dump to take things into their own hands.

“The two local security guards ran away when they saw us coming,” recalls Shiavagi. “They must have informed the plant on their wireless radios, though, because soon two official security men showed up in a car. They had guns and started threatening us. Everyone was shouting. One of the guards asked what the hell we thought we were doing, and said he’d shoot us if we didn’t leave. This made a couple of the younger guys really angry and they grabbed the guns off the security guards, lost their heads a bit and then locked them in the temple in the village. Then we set the seats of their car on fire and burned it.”

The apathetic attitude of years was quickly reversed. Within hours the Chief General Manager of the power station arrived with a police envoy, and acquiesced to the villagers’ demands. The guards were released and no charges levied against the protesters. The next day, the plant employed 40 people to sprinkle the dump with water, shortly afterwards installing a small sprinkler system to wet the fly ash and prevent it blowing into the village. They also rooted 10,000 plants in the ash ponds to reduce the amount of blow-off.

For the moment, Shiavagi and the other residents are mollified, but they are waiting to see if the power station installs the larger sprinkler system they promised, once the rainy season can no longer be relied upon to help quell the ash.

“I’m glad we did it,” he reflects, standing amongst the pools of water on the ash pond. “At least we eventually got some kind of reaction.”

Night has fallen now, and the bright lights of the power station are shining orange in the distance. To our right, where Dadahari Wadgoan lies, there is nothing but darkness, as the village continues to have 10-15 hours of scheduled power cuts per day. For the moment, though, the residents are merely glad to be rid of the thick grey dust filling their homes. But for the communities who live near other dumping grounds – both of Parli and other Thermal Power Stations – there is no such respite.

Our next report highlights the Energy Injustice that exists in India. While the government continues to add lakhs of megawatts of generating capacity by building more coal-fired thermal power plants, the rural poor are being left in the dark. The majority of the electricity generated in centralised power plants goes to feeding the insatiable appetite of the cities, while villages must suffer many hours of powercuts, if they have an electricity connection at all. To compound their problems, it is the rural population who must suffer the social, environmental, and health-related problems connected to centralised energy generation. Greenpeace thinks the solution to this injustice lies with creating decentralised energy generation systems, powered by renewable energy – a shift which will finally allow development of the rural poor, while also helping us to avoid dangerous climate change.

Still Waiting – or Chirag Tale Andhera – will be released on Tuesday 17th November 2009.

In the first of a five-part series to mark the release of the report, we profile people living with the consequences of this energy injustice. Today – a family living in an unelectrified village in rural Karnataka.

A thousand say NO to coal in Maharashtra

Alibaug Taluka, India – Close to a thousand villagers stood for hours in the formation of a life-size human windmill near Khidki village in Alibag, in what could well be the largest protest for renewable energy in India to date.

July 30, 2009: Over 1000 residents from villages in the Alibag taluka in Maharashtra gather to take part in a giant human art formation of a windmill, to voice their opposition to coal fired power plants planned in the region. The Maharashtra government is considering plans to approve 10,000 MW of new coal power plants by the Reliance, TATA, ISPAT and Patni groups. 60% of India's power currently comes from coal, the major cause of climate change. India needs to shift away from a fossil fuel based energy pathway to greener sustainable energy options.

They were demanding that the Maharashtra Government drop plans to build 10,000MW coal-fired thermal power plants in the region and explore renewable energy instead. The villagers said they were committed to fight the acquisition of their fertile land for coal-based power plants.

“We believe that the energy planned from these coal plants is dirty. It can come instead from clean alternatives like wind and solar energy, and by using energy more efficiently. We will not give up our land and our future to these mega power plants that will pollute our air, land, and water. We will not allow them to ruin our children’s future by adding to the problem of climate change,” said Dr Vishnu P. Mhatre of the Naugaon Sangharsh Samiti, one of the organisations fighting for clean energy here.

The community is opposing plans to set up thermal power plants over 8,500 acres of fertile land. The companies involved are the Tata Power Company Limited (1,200MW) and the Maharashtra Energy Generation Limited, a Reliance subsidiary, (4,000MW) at Shahpur in Alibag. The Patni group (500MW) and the Ispat group (2,000MW) want to set up their plants in the adjacent Medekhad Khadi.

For more than four years, the villagers have been resisting attempts by the government and the companies to acquire their land. “We do not oppose production of energy. But, we strongly demand that the Government of India change its energy pathway and move towards decentralised renewable energy, which will be used locally for agro-based industries and domestic needs,” said Satish Londhe, a resident of Alibag and state coordinator of the Shramik Mukti Dal.

To prove their solution-oriented approach, the citizens later joined in setting up a wind station. Admiral Ramdas, a Magsaysay awardee and a resident of Alibag, inaugurated the “Citizens’ Wind Monitoring Station” where the residents would record the area’s wind potential through an anemometer. This would show that the region has huge potential for wind energy, and challenge the government’s inaction in investing in alternate energies.

“Policymakers in the central and state governments need to explore the possibility of renewable resources like the wind, the sun, and other agents before rushing to coal for energy. In the current environment of global concern over climate change, we must also look critically at the operational efficiency of our power plants and increase energy efficiency in all sectors. This will ensure a dramatic reduction in our energy demand,” Ramdas asserted.

Maitree Dasgupta, Climate Campaigner with Greenpeace India, said: “This protest is a sign of popular opposition fomenting against coal in India, which will only grow. This not a fight against growth or development. It is just the opposite. It is a fight for building energy infrastructure for the future instead of relying on dinosaur technologies. India can get 35% of its power from renewable energy by 2030. We have the ability and technical capacity; we only need the political will.”

Greenpeace India is demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put in place a National Renewable Energy Bill no later than 2010, which would enable a shift towards a more sustainable energy pathway. This implies that the draft bill be made public this year for debate before placing it for parliamentary approval. It would also provide a framework for the Solar Mission and show that India is serious about the mission. More than 50,000 Indians have already signed Greenpeace India petitions demanding a response on this from Manmohan Singh.