Govt asks power plants to auction fly ash through transparent bidding process

Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy R K Singh held a meeting on Wednesday to review the status of fly ash transportation to the end users and the fly ash utilisation.

It was directed that power plants shall invariably auction the fly ash through a transparent bidding process and an advisory has also been issued by the Ministry for this purpose.

This will reduce the tariff of electricity and burden on the consumers. The advisory said the power plants shall provide the Fly Ash to end users through a transparent bidding process only.

If after bidding or auction, some quantity of Fly Ash still remains un-utilized, only then as one of the options, it could be considered to be given free of cost on first come first served basis if the user agency is willing to bear transportation cost.

If ash remains unutilised even after these steps, thermal power plant, TPPs shall bear the cost of transportation of Fly Ash to be provided free to eligible projects.

The end users shall be obligated to source the fly ash from the nearest TPPs to reduce the cost of fly ash transportation.