ईधन अधधक ना खपाय आओ पयाावरण बचाए

Petroleum Conservation Research Association Sanrakshan Bhawan 10 Bhikaji Cama Place New Delhi 110066

INDEX

S NO SUBJECT PAGE

1

11

12

2

21

22

3

31

32

4

41

42

43

5

TRANSPORT

-E-Vehicles (EV)

-Oil amp Gas run vehicles

ENVIRONMENT

- Air Water amp Sound pollution

-Health

ENERGY CONSERVATION

-Oil amp Gas

-Electricity

RENEWABLES ENERGY

-Wind

-Solar

-Biomass OTHERS

1-2 3-5 5-28 28-36

36-43 44-47

48 49-51

52

52-62

This Energy News contains excerpts of articles picked up from selected daily newspapers amp magazines

1

Building technologies to power lithium-ion batteries

Name of company ION Energy Set up in 2016

Based in Mumbai

Founders Akhil Aryan and Alexandre Collet

Funding received Undisclosed angel funding received from Sushil Jiwarajka

chairman of OMC Power Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev co-founders of

Haptik and executives from Dentsu Aegis Salesforce and Credit Suisse among

others

What it does Asan advanced battery management and intelligence platform

it focuses on building technologies that improve the life and performance of

lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles energy storage systems

How it does it It helps battery makers and OEMs optimise their battery

management systems (BMS) and build world-class batteries It empowers

organisations in South-East Asia North America and Europe (Germany France

UK Poland Austria Sweden) with flexibility independence and autonomy to

buy ready-to-deploy BMS platforms or build custom zero-downtime BMS

models

Big moments In February 2018 the company acquired French battery

management company Freemens SAS Post the acquisition the entire

Freemens engineering and sales team joined the core team of the start-up

With this Freemens SAS founder and CEO Alexandre Collet joined up as co-

founder and VP of Engineering to strengthen the founding team

In September 2019 it launched Edison Analytics mdash a battery intelligence

platform designed to leverage data machine learning and AI to extend life and

improve performance of Li-Ion batteries A full-stack advanced battery

management and intelligence SaaS platform solution Edison uses battery data

blends advanced electronics and adds a layer of intelligence with data science

plus machine learning plus digital twin technology to exceptionally improve the

life of lithium-ion batteries

2

Impact In October 2019 it accelerated the launch of French battery pack

manufacturer IBS as one of its first partners IONrsquos BMS licensing model was the

key enabler IBS has over 30-50 megawatt of batteries per year in scheduled

deployment over next three years

The start-uprsquos platform helped design power and deploy an allelectric

excavator to operate in extremely cold temperatures It helped a European

carmaker electrify its iconic model

Vision To accelerate the Earthrsquos transition to an all-electric planet

TaMo to Supply Tigor EVs to Lithium Urban

Tata Motors on Monday said it has inked a pact with commercial EV fleet

provider Lithium Urban Technologies to address mobility solutions across

passenger mass transit and freight segments As part of the agreement the

auto major will supply 400 Tigor EV units to Lithium Urban by the end of the

current fiscal Tata Motors said The partnership entails supply of 100 more e-

vehicles like the upcoming Nexon EV from the companys stable it added

ldquoThis is not just the most significant milestone for Tata Motors e-mobility

business but also a big turning point in EV market which is now likely to see

fleets electrify faster than ever beforerdquo Tata Motors President Electric Mobility

Business amp Corporate Strategy Shailesh Chandra said The company is

committed to nurturing this valued partnership as it addresses the evolving

mobility needs of customers through various disruptive business models he

added ldquoThe induction of new extended range Tigor EVs (213 km) and future e

-vehicles will add further differentiation to our service offerings for passenger

servicesrdquo Lithium Urban Technologies Founder Sanjay Krishnan said

3

Marutirsquos Diesel Models Going Out with a Bang Ahead of BS-

VI Launch

Maruti Suzuki is witnessing a sudden surge in demand for its diesel models

compelling the maker of the Vitara Brezza and Dzire to ramp up production of

some of the variants that it plans to phase out before the new emission

standards come into effect in April Huge discounts and extended warranty that

the company is offering to clear the inventory of Bharat Stage-IV variants have

attracted consumers looking for value buys In the past couple of months retail

sales of the Vitara Brezza diesel almost doubled to 13000-14000 units from

the previous months The company has now extended the production of

Brezzarsquos diesel variants by a month to January and increased the planned

output by 3000-4000 units each in November and December to about 12000

units In fact including other models the local subsidiary of Japanrsquos Suzuki

Motor will be producing around 30000 units of diesel vehicles in the next three

months which is almost 30-50 higher than its previous plan The company has

hired back close to 1000 temporary workers it had previously let go of as the

diesel variants of the Brezza and Dzire Tour and other models like the new

WagonR S-Presso and XL6 have a waiting period for delivery Maruti Suzuki

4

didnrsquot respond to an email seeking comment until press time Monday The

company has already started manufacturing vehicles conforming to the

upcoming Bharat State-VI emission standards It is now also producing petrol

variants of the Brezza which was previously available only in diesel Maruti

Suzuki had earlier said that it would discontinue production of diesel vehicles

once the new rules come into effect citing cost A few other automakers too

have said that they would rethink on their diesel strategy since the high cost of

developing the engines wonrsquot make those viable on small cars

TOYOTArsquoS DIESEL PLANS- Toyota which operates in the Indian market through

a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group is among the automakers looking at

stopping the production of small diesel vehicles in the country said industry

insiders While Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) will continue to offer diesel

options in utility vehicles Innova and Fortuner it will discontinue the 13-litre

diesel engine currently strapped on the Etios Etios Cross Liva and the Corolla

Altis they said

Diesel vehicles currently account for 85 of the volume for the company for

which more than 60 of the sales comes from the Innova and Fortuner N Raja

the deputy managing director at TKM said the company continued to see

demand for diesel ldquoWe will continue to be in diesel as long there is a demand

from the customers and the next technology innovations beginsrdquo he said in

response to ETrsquos questions Prices of diesel vehicles are likely to increase 15-

20 due to the implementation of BS-VI TKM said

SMOOTH TRANSITION- Maruti Suzuki has already moved to BS-VI from BS-IV

for as many as eight models as the company is aiming for a smooth transition

and avoiding a fire sale ahead of the March 31 deadline Diesel-powered

vehicles accounted for 22 of the total volume for the company in the

September quarter compared with 33 for the industry The company offered

an average discount of ₹110 lakh on its diesel models in three-month period

That was more than four times the overall discount of ₹25761per vehicle it

offered in the quarter

The reason for the sudden spike in demand for Maruti Suzukirsquos diesel models is

the enhanced value proposition it offered with the extended warranty and

5

steep discount said Gaurav Vangaal the country lead for production

forecasting at IHS Markit ldquoPost BS-VI with a steep price hike the diesel

demand is likely to fall significantlyrdquo he added

Delhi surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters

finds CPCB study

Assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest the national

capital is home to and surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters that

do not meet air water or soil pollution parameters contributing to the cityrsquos

grimy air and poor water quality The Najafgarh drain basin in Delhi which

includes the Anand Parbat Naraina Okhla and Wazirpur industrial areas is the

second most polluted cluster in India with air and water in the ldquocriticalrdquo

category and soil in ldquosevererdquo category when it comes to toxic content

according to unpublished CPCB data accessed by Hindustan Times CPCB has

compiled and submitted a list of critically polluted industrial clusters that were

monitored in 2018 to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which referred to the

list in an order dated July 10 2019 Other critically polluted towns in Delhirsquos

neighbourhood are Mathura Kanpur Moradabad Varanasi and Bulandshahr

Agra Firozabad and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh Gurgaon in Haryana and

Bhiwad in Rajasthan Despite deadly air pollution levels in the National Capital

Region centred on Delhi clean-up action couldnrsquot be initiated on these clusters

because the environment ministry is still considering the CPCBthinspfindings

ldquoThe environment ministry is still considering this assessment so we havenrsquot

published the data yet But the findings can be viewed by anyone who is

interested in the NGT orderrdquo said a CPCB official who declined to be named

Delhi is confronting the annual phenomenon of farm fires resulting from

stubble burning in neighbouring states such a Punjab and Haryana that

aggravate its toxic air quality and shroud the city in thick smog And a survey

released by the central government on Saturday revealed that Mumbai was the

only city whose tap water met the piped drinking water quality standards set

by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while Delhirsquos was ldquoundrinkablerdquo

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

INDEX

S NO SUBJECT PAGE

1

11

12

2

21

22

3

31

32

4

41

42

43

5

TRANSPORT

-E-Vehicles (EV)

-Oil amp Gas run vehicles

ENVIRONMENT

- Air Water amp Sound pollution

-Health

ENERGY CONSERVATION

-Oil amp Gas

-Electricity

RENEWABLES ENERGY

-Wind

-Solar

-Biomass OTHERS

1-2 3-5 5-28 28-36

36-43 44-47

48 49-51

52

52-62

This Energy News contains excerpts of articles picked up from selected daily newspapers amp magazines

1

Building technologies to power lithium-ion batteries

Name of company ION Energy Set up in 2016

Based in Mumbai

Founders Akhil Aryan and Alexandre Collet

Funding received Undisclosed angel funding received from Sushil Jiwarajka

chairman of OMC Power Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev co-founders of

Haptik and executives from Dentsu Aegis Salesforce and Credit Suisse among

others

What it does Asan advanced battery management and intelligence platform

it focuses on building technologies that improve the life and performance of

lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles energy storage systems

How it does it It helps battery makers and OEMs optimise their battery

management systems (BMS) and build world-class batteries It empowers

organisations in South-East Asia North America and Europe (Germany France

UK Poland Austria Sweden) with flexibility independence and autonomy to

buy ready-to-deploy BMS platforms or build custom zero-downtime BMS

models

Big moments In February 2018 the company acquired French battery

management company Freemens SAS Post the acquisition the entire

Freemens engineering and sales team joined the core team of the start-up

With this Freemens SAS founder and CEO Alexandre Collet joined up as co-

founder and VP of Engineering to strengthen the founding team

In September 2019 it launched Edison Analytics mdash a battery intelligence

platform designed to leverage data machine learning and AI to extend life and

improve performance of Li-Ion batteries A full-stack advanced battery

management and intelligence SaaS platform solution Edison uses battery data

blends advanced electronics and adds a layer of intelligence with data science

plus machine learning plus digital twin technology to exceptionally improve the

life of lithium-ion batteries

2

Impact In October 2019 it accelerated the launch of French battery pack

manufacturer IBS as one of its first partners IONrsquos BMS licensing model was the

key enabler IBS has over 30-50 megawatt of batteries per year in scheduled

deployment over next three years

The start-uprsquos platform helped design power and deploy an allelectric

excavator to operate in extremely cold temperatures It helped a European

carmaker electrify its iconic model

Vision To accelerate the Earthrsquos transition to an all-electric planet

TaMo to Supply Tigor EVs to Lithium Urban

Tata Motors on Monday said it has inked a pact with commercial EV fleet

provider Lithium Urban Technologies to address mobility solutions across

passenger mass transit and freight segments As part of the agreement the

auto major will supply 400 Tigor EV units to Lithium Urban by the end of the

current fiscal Tata Motors said The partnership entails supply of 100 more e-

vehicles like the upcoming Nexon EV from the companys stable it added

ldquoThis is not just the most significant milestone for Tata Motors e-mobility

business but also a big turning point in EV market which is now likely to see

fleets electrify faster than ever beforerdquo Tata Motors President Electric Mobility

Business amp Corporate Strategy Shailesh Chandra said The company is

committed to nurturing this valued partnership as it addresses the evolving

mobility needs of customers through various disruptive business models he

added ldquoThe induction of new extended range Tigor EVs (213 km) and future e

-vehicles will add further differentiation to our service offerings for passenger

servicesrdquo Lithium Urban Technologies Founder Sanjay Krishnan said

3

Marutirsquos Diesel Models Going Out with a Bang Ahead of BS-

VI Launch

Maruti Suzuki is witnessing a sudden surge in demand for its diesel models

compelling the maker of the Vitara Brezza and Dzire to ramp up production of

some of the variants that it plans to phase out before the new emission

standards come into effect in April Huge discounts and extended warranty that

the company is offering to clear the inventory of Bharat Stage-IV variants have

attracted consumers looking for value buys In the past couple of months retail

sales of the Vitara Brezza diesel almost doubled to 13000-14000 units from

the previous months The company has now extended the production of

Brezzarsquos diesel variants by a month to January and increased the planned

output by 3000-4000 units each in November and December to about 12000

units In fact including other models the local subsidiary of Japanrsquos Suzuki

Motor will be producing around 30000 units of diesel vehicles in the next three

months which is almost 30-50 higher than its previous plan The company has

hired back close to 1000 temporary workers it had previously let go of as the

diesel variants of the Brezza and Dzire Tour and other models like the new

WagonR S-Presso and XL6 have a waiting period for delivery Maruti Suzuki

4

didnrsquot respond to an email seeking comment until press time Monday The

company has already started manufacturing vehicles conforming to the

upcoming Bharat State-VI emission standards It is now also producing petrol

variants of the Brezza which was previously available only in diesel Maruti

Suzuki had earlier said that it would discontinue production of diesel vehicles

once the new rules come into effect citing cost A few other automakers too

have said that they would rethink on their diesel strategy since the high cost of

developing the engines wonrsquot make those viable on small cars

TOYOTArsquoS DIESEL PLANS- Toyota which operates in the Indian market through

a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group is among the automakers looking at

stopping the production of small diesel vehicles in the country said industry

insiders While Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) will continue to offer diesel

options in utility vehicles Innova and Fortuner it will discontinue the 13-litre

diesel engine currently strapped on the Etios Etios Cross Liva and the Corolla

Altis they said

Diesel vehicles currently account for 85 of the volume for the company for

which more than 60 of the sales comes from the Innova and Fortuner N Raja

the deputy managing director at TKM said the company continued to see

demand for diesel ldquoWe will continue to be in diesel as long there is a demand

from the customers and the next technology innovations beginsrdquo he said in

response to ETrsquos questions Prices of diesel vehicles are likely to increase 15-

20 due to the implementation of BS-VI TKM said

SMOOTH TRANSITION- Maruti Suzuki has already moved to BS-VI from BS-IV

for as many as eight models as the company is aiming for a smooth transition

and avoiding a fire sale ahead of the March 31 deadline Diesel-powered

vehicles accounted for 22 of the total volume for the company in the

September quarter compared with 33 for the industry The company offered

an average discount of ₹110 lakh on its diesel models in three-month period

That was more than four times the overall discount of ₹25761per vehicle it

offered in the quarter

The reason for the sudden spike in demand for Maruti Suzukirsquos diesel models is

the enhanced value proposition it offered with the extended warranty and

5

steep discount said Gaurav Vangaal the country lead for production

forecasting at IHS Markit ldquoPost BS-VI with a steep price hike the diesel

demand is likely to fall significantlyrdquo he added

Delhi surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters

finds CPCB study

Assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest the national

capital is home to and surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters that

do not meet air water or soil pollution parameters contributing to the cityrsquos

grimy air and poor water quality The Najafgarh drain basin in Delhi which

includes the Anand Parbat Naraina Okhla and Wazirpur industrial areas is the

second most polluted cluster in India with air and water in the ldquocriticalrdquo

category and soil in ldquosevererdquo category when it comes to toxic content

according to unpublished CPCB data accessed by Hindustan Times CPCB has

compiled and submitted a list of critically polluted industrial clusters that were

monitored in 2018 to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which referred to the

list in an order dated July 10 2019 Other critically polluted towns in Delhirsquos

neighbourhood are Mathura Kanpur Moradabad Varanasi and Bulandshahr

Agra Firozabad and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh Gurgaon in Haryana and

Bhiwad in Rajasthan Despite deadly air pollution levels in the National Capital

Region centred on Delhi clean-up action couldnrsquot be initiated on these clusters

because the environment ministry is still considering the CPCBthinspfindings

ldquoThe environment ministry is still considering this assessment so we havenrsquot

published the data yet But the findings can be viewed by anyone who is

interested in the NGT orderrdquo said a CPCB official who declined to be named

Delhi is confronting the annual phenomenon of farm fires resulting from

stubble burning in neighbouring states such a Punjab and Haryana that

aggravate its toxic air quality and shroud the city in thick smog And a survey

released by the central government on Saturday revealed that Mumbai was the

only city whose tap water met the piped drinking water quality standards set

by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while Delhirsquos was ldquoundrinkablerdquo

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

1

Building technologies to power lithium-ion batteries

Name of company ION Energy Set up in 2016

Based in Mumbai

Founders Akhil Aryan and Alexandre Collet

Funding received Undisclosed angel funding received from Sushil Jiwarajka

chairman of OMC Power Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev co-founders of

Haptik and executives from Dentsu Aegis Salesforce and Credit Suisse among

others

What it does Asan advanced battery management and intelligence platform

it focuses on building technologies that improve the life and performance of

lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles energy storage systems

How it does it It helps battery makers and OEMs optimise their battery

management systems (BMS) and build world-class batteries It empowers

organisations in South-East Asia North America and Europe (Germany France

UK Poland Austria Sweden) with flexibility independence and autonomy to

buy ready-to-deploy BMS platforms or build custom zero-downtime BMS

models

Big moments In February 2018 the company acquired French battery

management company Freemens SAS Post the acquisition the entire

Freemens engineering and sales team joined the core team of the start-up

With this Freemens SAS founder and CEO Alexandre Collet joined up as co-

founder and VP of Engineering to strengthen the founding team

In September 2019 it launched Edison Analytics mdash a battery intelligence

platform designed to leverage data machine learning and AI to extend life and

improve performance of Li-Ion batteries A full-stack advanced battery

management and intelligence SaaS platform solution Edison uses battery data

blends advanced electronics and adds a layer of intelligence with data science

plus machine learning plus digital twin technology to exceptionally improve the

life of lithium-ion batteries

2

Impact In October 2019 it accelerated the launch of French battery pack

manufacturer IBS as one of its first partners IONrsquos BMS licensing model was the

key enabler IBS has over 30-50 megawatt of batteries per year in scheduled

deployment over next three years

The start-uprsquos platform helped design power and deploy an allelectric

excavator to operate in extremely cold temperatures It helped a European

carmaker electrify its iconic model

Vision To accelerate the Earthrsquos transition to an all-electric planet

TaMo to Supply Tigor EVs to Lithium Urban

Tata Motors on Monday said it has inked a pact with commercial EV fleet

provider Lithium Urban Technologies to address mobility solutions across

passenger mass transit and freight segments As part of the agreement the

auto major will supply 400 Tigor EV units to Lithium Urban by the end of the

current fiscal Tata Motors said The partnership entails supply of 100 more e-

vehicles like the upcoming Nexon EV from the companys stable it added

ldquoThis is not just the most significant milestone for Tata Motors e-mobility

business but also a big turning point in EV market which is now likely to see

fleets electrify faster than ever beforerdquo Tata Motors President Electric Mobility

Business amp Corporate Strategy Shailesh Chandra said The company is

committed to nurturing this valued partnership as it addresses the evolving

mobility needs of customers through various disruptive business models he

added ldquoThe induction of new extended range Tigor EVs (213 km) and future e

-vehicles will add further differentiation to our service offerings for passenger

servicesrdquo Lithium Urban Technologies Founder Sanjay Krishnan said

3

Marutirsquos Diesel Models Going Out with a Bang Ahead of BS-

VI Launch

Maruti Suzuki is witnessing a sudden surge in demand for its diesel models

compelling the maker of the Vitara Brezza and Dzire to ramp up production of

some of the variants that it plans to phase out before the new emission

standards come into effect in April Huge discounts and extended warranty that

the company is offering to clear the inventory of Bharat Stage-IV variants have

attracted consumers looking for value buys In the past couple of months retail

sales of the Vitara Brezza diesel almost doubled to 13000-14000 units from

the previous months The company has now extended the production of

Brezzarsquos diesel variants by a month to January and increased the planned

output by 3000-4000 units each in November and December to about 12000

units In fact including other models the local subsidiary of Japanrsquos Suzuki

Motor will be producing around 30000 units of diesel vehicles in the next three

months which is almost 30-50 higher than its previous plan The company has

hired back close to 1000 temporary workers it had previously let go of as the

diesel variants of the Brezza and Dzire Tour and other models like the new

WagonR S-Presso and XL6 have a waiting period for delivery Maruti Suzuki

4

didnrsquot respond to an email seeking comment until press time Monday The

company has already started manufacturing vehicles conforming to the

upcoming Bharat State-VI emission standards It is now also producing petrol

variants of the Brezza which was previously available only in diesel Maruti

Suzuki had earlier said that it would discontinue production of diesel vehicles

once the new rules come into effect citing cost A few other automakers too

have said that they would rethink on their diesel strategy since the high cost of

developing the engines wonrsquot make those viable on small cars

TOYOTArsquoS DIESEL PLANS- Toyota which operates in the Indian market through

a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group is among the automakers looking at

stopping the production of small diesel vehicles in the country said industry

insiders While Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) will continue to offer diesel

options in utility vehicles Innova and Fortuner it will discontinue the 13-litre

diesel engine currently strapped on the Etios Etios Cross Liva and the Corolla

Altis they said

Diesel vehicles currently account for 85 of the volume for the company for

which more than 60 of the sales comes from the Innova and Fortuner N Raja

the deputy managing director at TKM said the company continued to see

demand for diesel ldquoWe will continue to be in diesel as long there is a demand

from the customers and the next technology innovations beginsrdquo he said in

response to ETrsquos questions Prices of diesel vehicles are likely to increase 15-

20 due to the implementation of BS-VI TKM said

SMOOTH TRANSITION- Maruti Suzuki has already moved to BS-VI from BS-IV

for as many as eight models as the company is aiming for a smooth transition

and avoiding a fire sale ahead of the March 31 deadline Diesel-powered

vehicles accounted for 22 of the total volume for the company in the

September quarter compared with 33 for the industry The company offered

an average discount of ₹110 lakh on its diesel models in three-month period

That was more than four times the overall discount of ₹25761per vehicle it

offered in the quarter

The reason for the sudden spike in demand for Maruti Suzukirsquos diesel models is

the enhanced value proposition it offered with the extended warranty and

5

steep discount said Gaurav Vangaal the country lead for production

forecasting at IHS Markit ldquoPost BS-VI with a steep price hike the diesel

demand is likely to fall significantlyrdquo he added

Delhi surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters

finds CPCB study

Assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest the national

capital is home to and surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters that

do not meet air water or soil pollution parameters contributing to the cityrsquos

grimy air and poor water quality The Najafgarh drain basin in Delhi which

includes the Anand Parbat Naraina Okhla and Wazirpur industrial areas is the

second most polluted cluster in India with air and water in the ldquocriticalrdquo

category and soil in ldquosevererdquo category when it comes to toxic content

according to unpublished CPCB data accessed by Hindustan Times CPCB has

compiled and submitted a list of critically polluted industrial clusters that were

monitored in 2018 to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which referred to the

list in an order dated July 10 2019 Other critically polluted towns in Delhirsquos

neighbourhood are Mathura Kanpur Moradabad Varanasi and Bulandshahr

Agra Firozabad and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh Gurgaon in Haryana and

Bhiwad in Rajasthan Despite deadly air pollution levels in the National Capital

Region centred on Delhi clean-up action couldnrsquot be initiated on these clusters

because the environment ministry is still considering the CPCBthinspfindings

ldquoThe environment ministry is still considering this assessment so we havenrsquot

published the data yet But the findings can be viewed by anyone who is

interested in the NGT orderrdquo said a CPCB official who declined to be named

Delhi is confronting the annual phenomenon of farm fires resulting from

stubble burning in neighbouring states such a Punjab and Haryana that

aggravate its toxic air quality and shroud the city in thick smog And a survey

released by the central government on Saturday revealed that Mumbai was the

only city whose tap water met the piped drinking water quality standards set

by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while Delhirsquos was ldquoundrinkablerdquo

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

2

Impact In October 2019 it accelerated the launch of French battery pack

manufacturer IBS as one of its first partners IONrsquos BMS licensing model was the

key enabler IBS has over 30-50 megawatt of batteries per year in scheduled

deployment over next three years

The start-uprsquos platform helped design power and deploy an allelectric

excavator to operate in extremely cold temperatures It helped a European

carmaker electrify its iconic model

Vision To accelerate the Earthrsquos transition to an all-electric planet

TaMo to Supply Tigor EVs to Lithium Urban

Tata Motors on Monday said it has inked a pact with commercial EV fleet

provider Lithium Urban Technologies to address mobility solutions across

passenger mass transit and freight segments As part of the agreement the

auto major will supply 400 Tigor EV units to Lithium Urban by the end of the

current fiscal Tata Motors said The partnership entails supply of 100 more e-

vehicles like the upcoming Nexon EV from the companys stable it added

ldquoThis is not just the most significant milestone for Tata Motors e-mobility

business but also a big turning point in EV market which is now likely to see

fleets electrify faster than ever beforerdquo Tata Motors President Electric Mobility

Business amp Corporate Strategy Shailesh Chandra said The company is

committed to nurturing this valued partnership as it addresses the evolving

mobility needs of customers through various disruptive business models he

added ldquoThe induction of new extended range Tigor EVs (213 km) and future e

-vehicles will add further differentiation to our service offerings for passenger

servicesrdquo Lithium Urban Technologies Founder Sanjay Krishnan said

3

Marutirsquos Diesel Models Going Out with a Bang Ahead of BS-

VI Launch

Maruti Suzuki is witnessing a sudden surge in demand for its diesel models

compelling the maker of the Vitara Brezza and Dzire to ramp up production of

some of the variants that it plans to phase out before the new emission

standards come into effect in April Huge discounts and extended warranty that

the company is offering to clear the inventory of Bharat Stage-IV variants have

attracted consumers looking for value buys In the past couple of months retail

sales of the Vitara Brezza diesel almost doubled to 13000-14000 units from

the previous months The company has now extended the production of

Brezzarsquos diesel variants by a month to January and increased the planned

output by 3000-4000 units each in November and December to about 12000

units In fact including other models the local subsidiary of Japanrsquos Suzuki

Motor will be producing around 30000 units of diesel vehicles in the next three

months which is almost 30-50 higher than its previous plan The company has

hired back close to 1000 temporary workers it had previously let go of as the

diesel variants of the Brezza and Dzire Tour and other models like the new

WagonR S-Presso and XL6 have a waiting period for delivery Maruti Suzuki

4

didnrsquot respond to an email seeking comment until press time Monday The

company has already started manufacturing vehicles conforming to the

upcoming Bharat State-VI emission standards It is now also producing petrol

variants of the Brezza which was previously available only in diesel Maruti

Suzuki had earlier said that it would discontinue production of diesel vehicles

once the new rules come into effect citing cost A few other automakers too

have said that they would rethink on their diesel strategy since the high cost of

developing the engines wonrsquot make those viable on small cars

TOYOTArsquoS DIESEL PLANS- Toyota which operates in the Indian market through

a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group is among the automakers looking at

stopping the production of small diesel vehicles in the country said industry

insiders While Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) will continue to offer diesel

options in utility vehicles Innova and Fortuner it will discontinue the 13-litre

diesel engine currently strapped on the Etios Etios Cross Liva and the Corolla

Altis they said

Diesel vehicles currently account for 85 of the volume for the company for

which more than 60 of the sales comes from the Innova and Fortuner N Raja

the deputy managing director at TKM said the company continued to see

demand for diesel ldquoWe will continue to be in diesel as long there is a demand

from the customers and the next technology innovations beginsrdquo he said in

response to ETrsquos questions Prices of diesel vehicles are likely to increase 15-

20 due to the implementation of BS-VI TKM said

SMOOTH TRANSITION- Maruti Suzuki has already moved to BS-VI from BS-IV

for as many as eight models as the company is aiming for a smooth transition

and avoiding a fire sale ahead of the March 31 deadline Diesel-powered

vehicles accounted for 22 of the total volume for the company in the

September quarter compared with 33 for the industry The company offered

an average discount of ₹110 lakh on its diesel models in three-month period

That was more than four times the overall discount of ₹25761per vehicle it

offered in the quarter

The reason for the sudden spike in demand for Maruti Suzukirsquos diesel models is

the enhanced value proposition it offered with the extended warranty and

5

steep discount said Gaurav Vangaal the country lead for production

forecasting at IHS Markit ldquoPost BS-VI with a steep price hike the diesel

demand is likely to fall significantlyrdquo he added

Delhi surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters

finds CPCB study

Assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest the national

capital is home to and surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters that

do not meet air water or soil pollution parameters contributing to the cityrsquos

grimy air and poor water quality The Najafgarh drain basin in Delhi which

includes the Anand Parbat Naraina Okhla and Wazirpur industrial areas is the

second most polluted cluster in India with air and water in the ldquocriticalrdquo

category and soil in ldquosevererdquo category when it comes to toxic content

according to unpublished CPCB data accessed by Hindustan Times CPCB has

compiled and submitted a list of critically polluted industrial clusters that were

monitored in 2018 to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which referred to the

list in an order dated July 10 2019 Other critically polluted towns in Delhirsquos

neighbourhood are Mathura Kanpur Moradabad Varanasi and Bulandshahr

Agra Firozabad and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh Gurgaon in Haryana and

Bhiwad in Rajasthan Despite deadly air pollution levels in the National Capital

Region centred on Delhi clean-up action couldnrsquot be initiated on these clusters

because the environment ministry is still considering the CPCBthinspfindings

ldquoThe environment ministry is still considering this assessment so we havenrsquot

published the data yet But the findings can be viewed by anyone who is

interested in the NGT orderrdquo said a CPCB official who declined to be named

Delhi is confronting the annual phenomenon of farm fires resulting from

stubble burning in neighbouring states such a Punjab and Haryana that

aggravate its toxic air quality and shroud the city in thick smog And a survey

released by the central government on Saturday revealed that Mumbai was the

only city whose tap water met the piped drinking water quality standards set

by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while Delhirsquos was ldquoundrinkablerdquo

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

3

Marutirsquos Diesel Models Going Out with a Bang Ahead of BS-

VI Launch

Maruti Suzuki is witnessing a sudden surge in demand for its diesel models

compelling the maker of the Vitara Brezza and Dzire to ramp up production of

some of the variants that it plans to phase out before the new emission

standards come into effect in April Huge discounts and extended warranty that

the company is offering to clear the inventory of Bharat Stage-IV variants have

attracted consumers looking for value buys In the past couple of months retail

sales of the Vitara Brezza diesel almost doubled to 13000-14000 units from

the previous months The company has now extended the production of

Brezzarsquos diesel variants by a month to January and increased the planned

output by 3000-4000 units each in November and December to about 12000

units In fact including other models the local subsidiary of Japanrsquos Suzuki

Motor will be producing around 30000 units of diesel vehicles in the next three

months which is almost 30-50 higher than its previous plan The company has

hired back close to 1000 temporary workers it had previously let go of as the

diesel variants of the Brezza and Dzire Tour and other models like the new

WagonR S-Presso and XL6 have a waiting period for delivery Maruti Suzuki

4

didnrsquot respond to an email seeking comment until press time Monday The

company has already started manufacturing vehicles conforming to the

upcoming Bharat State-VI emission standards It is now also producing petrol

variants of the Brezza which was previously available only in diesel Maruti

Suzuki had earlier said that it would discontinue production of diesel vehicles

once the new rules come into effect citing cost A few other automakers too

have said that they would rethink on their diesel strategy since the high cost of

developing the engines wonrsquot make those viable on small cars

TOYOTArsquoS DIESEL PLANS- Toyota which operates in the Indian market through

a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group is among the automakers looking at

stopping the production of small diesel vehicles in the country said industry

insiders While Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) will continue to offer diesel

options in utility vehicles Innova and Fortuner it will discontinue the 13-litre

diesel engine currently strapped on the Etios Etios Cross Liva and the Corolla

Altis they said

Diesel vehicles currently account for 85 of the volume for the company for

which more than 60 of the sales comes from the Innova and Fortuner N Raja

the deputy managing director at TKM said the company continued to see

demand for diesel ldquoWe will continue to be in diesel as long there is a demand

from the customers and the next technology innovations beginsrdquo he said in

response to ETrsquos questions Prices of diesel vehicles are likely to increase 15-

20 due to the implementation of BS-VI TKM said

SMOOTH TRANSITION- Maruti Suzuki has already moved to BS-VI from BS-IV

for as many as eight models as the company is aiming for a smooth transition

and avoiding a fire sale ahead of the March 31 deadline Diesel-powered

vehicles accounted for 22 of the total volume for the company in the

September quarter compared with 33 for the industry The company offered

an average discount of ₹110 lakh on its diesel models in three-month period

That was more than four times the overall discount of ₹25761per vehicle it

offered in the quarter

The reason for the sudden spike in demand for Maruti Suzukirsquos diesel models is

the enhanced value proposition it offered with the extended warranty and

5

steep discount said Gaurav Vangaal the country lead for production

forecasting at IHS Markit ldquoPost BS-VI with a steep price hike the diesel

demand is likely to fall significantlyrdquo he added

Delhi surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters

finds CPCB study

Assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest the national

capital is home to and surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters that

do not meet air water or soil pollution parameters contributing to the cityrsquos

grimy air and poor water quality The Najafgarh drain basin in Delhi which

includes the Anand Parbat Naraina Okhla and Wazirpur industrial areas is the

second most polluted cluster in India with air and water in the ldquocriticalrdquo

category and soil in ldquosevererdquo category when it comes to toxic content

according to unpublished CPCB data accessed by Hindustan Times CPCB has

compiled and submitted a list of critically polluted industrial clusters that were

monitored in 2018 to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which referred to the

list in an order dated July 10 2019 Other critically polluted towns in Delhirsquos

neighbourhood are Mathura Kanpur Moradabad Varanasi and Bulandshahr

Agra Firozabad and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh Gurgaon in Haryana and

Bhiwad in Rajasthan Despite deadly air pollution levels in the National Capital

Region centred on Delhi clean-up action couldnrsquot be initiated on these clusters

because the environment ministry is still considering the CPCBthinspfindings

ldquoThe environment ministry is still considering this assessment so we havenrsquot

published the data yet But the findings can be viewed by anyone who is

interested in the NGT orderrdquo said a CPCB official who declined to be named

Delhi is confronting the annual phenomenon of farm fires resulting from

stubble burning in neighbouring states such a Punjab and Haryana that

aggravate its toxic air quality and shroud the city in thick smog And a survey

released by the central government on Saturday revealed that Mumbai was the

only city whose tap water met the piped drinking water quality standards set

by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while Delhirsquos was ldquoundrinkablerdquo

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

4

didnrsquot respond to an email seeking comment until press time Monday The

company has already started manufacturing vehicles conforming to the

upcoming Bharat State-VI emission standards It is now also producing petrol

variants of the Brezza which was previously available only in diesel Maruti

Suzuki had earlier said that it would discontinue production of diesel vehicles

once the new rules come into effect citing cost A few other automakers too

have said that they would rethink on their diesel strategy since the high cost of

developing the engines wonrsquot make those viable on small cars

TOYOTArsquoS DIESEL PLANS- Toyota which operates in the Indian market through

a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group is among the automakers looking at

stopping the production of small diesel vehicles in the country said industry

insiders While Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) will continue to offer diesel

options in utility vehicles Innova and Fortuner it will discontinue the 13-litre

diesel engine currently strapped on the Etios Etios Cross Liva and the Corolla

Altis they said

Diesel vehicles currently account for 85 of the volume for the company for

which more than 60 of the sales comes from the Innova and Fortuner N Raja

the deputy managing director at TKM said the company continued to see

demand for diesel ldquoWe will continue to be in diesel as long there is a demand

from the customers and the next technology innovations beginsrdquo he said in

response to ETrsquos questions Prices of diesel vehicles are likely to increase 15-

20 due to the implementation of BS-VI TKM said

SMOOTH TRANSITION- Maruti Suzuki has already moved to BS-VI from BS-IV

for as many as eight models as the company is aiming for a smooth transition

and avoiding a fire sale ahead of the March 31 deadline Diesel-powered

vehicles accounted for 22 of the total volume for the company in the

September quarter compared with 33 for the industry The company offered

an average discount of ₹110 lakh on its diesel models in three-month period

That was more than four times the overall discount of ₹25761per vehicle it

offered in the quarter

The reason for the sudden spike in demand for Maruti Suzukirsquos diesel models is

the enhanced value proposition it offered with the extended warranty and

5

steep discount said Gaurav Vangaal the country lead for production

forecasting at IHS Markit ldquoPost BS-VI with a steep price hike the diesel

demand is likely to fall significantlyrdquo he added

Delhi surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters

finds CPCB study

Assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest the national

capital is home to and surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters that

do not meet air water or soil pollution parameters contributing to the cityrsquos

grimy air and poor water quality The Najafgarh drain basin in Delhi which

includes the Anand Parbat Naraina Okhla and Wazirpur industrial areas is the

second most polluted cluster in India with air and water in the ldquocriticalrdquo

category and soil in ldquosevererdquo category when it comes to toxic content

according to unpublished CPCB data accessed by Hindustan Times CPCB has

compiled and submitted a list of critically polluted industrial clusters that were

monitored in 2018 to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which referred to the

list in an order dated July 10 2019 Other critically polluted towns in Delhirsquos

neighbourhood are Mathura Kanpur Moradabad Varanasi and Bulandshahr

Agra Firozabad and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh Gurgaon in Haryana and

Bhiwad in Rajasthan Despite deadly air pollution levels in the National Capital

Region centred on Delhi clean-up action couldnrsquot be initiated on these clusters

because the environment ministry is still considering the CPCBthinspfindings

ldquoThe environment ministry is still considering this assessment so we havenrsquot

published the data yet But the findings can be viewed by anyone who is

interested in the NGT orderrdquo said a CPCB official who declined to be named

Delhi is confronting the annual phenomenon of farm fires resulting from

stubble burning in neighbouring states such a Punjab and Haryana that

aggravate its toxic air quality and shroud the city in thick smog And a survey

released by the central government on Saturday revealed that Mumbai was the

only city whose tap water met the piped drinking water quality standards set

by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while Delhirsquos was ldquoundrinkablerdquo

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

5

steep discount said Gaurav Vangaal the country lead for production

forecasting at IHS Markit ldquoPost BS-VI with a steep price hike the diesel

demand is likely to fall significantlyrdquo he added

Delhi surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters

finds CPCB study

Assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest the national

capital is home to and surrounded by critically polluted industrial clusters that

do not meet air water or soil pollution parameters contributing to the cityrsquos

grimy air and poor water quality The Najafgarh drain basin in Delhi which

includes the Anand Parbat Naraina Okhla and Wazirpur industrial areas is the

second most polluted cluster in India with air and water in the ldquocriticalrdquo

category and soil in ldquosevererdquo category when it comes to toxic content

according to unpublished CPCB data accessed by Hindustan Times CPCB has

compiled and submitted a list of critically polluted industrial clusters that were

monitored in 2018 to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which referred to the

list in an order dated July 10 2019 Other critically polluted towns in Delhirsquos

neighbourhood are Mathura Kanpur Moradabad Varanasi and Bulandshahr

Agra Firozabad and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh Gurgaon in Haryana and

Bhiwad in Rajasthan Despite deadly air pollution levels in the National Capital

Region centred on Delhi clean-up action couldnrsquot be initiated on these clusters

because the environment ministry is still considering the CPCBthinspfindings

ldquoThe environment ministry is still considering this assessment so we havenrsquot

published the data yet But the findings can be viewed by anyone who is

interested in the NGT orderrdquo said a CPCB official who declined to be named

Delhi is confronting the annual phenomenon of farm fires resulting from

stubble burning in neighbouring states such a Punjab and Haryana that

aggravate its toxic air quality and shroud the city in thick smog And a survey

released by the central government on Saturday revealed that Mumbai was the

only city whose tap water met the piped drinking water quality standards set

by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while Delhirsquos was ldquoundrinkablerdquo

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

6

The assessment of industrial clusters is based on CPCBrsquos comprehensive

environmental pollution index (CEPI) a framework for identifying critically and

severely polluted industrial clusters in the country Areas with CEPI scores

above 70 are considered ldquocritically pollutedrdquo while those with scores in the 60-

70 range are considered ldquoseverely pollutedrdquo

In 2016 the ministry revised the process for calculate CEPI and dropped two

important parameters in making CEPI assessment The two parameters that

were dropped from the process are impact of pollution on health and

environmental degradation Only data from hospital admissions will be

evaluated The excuse was that these two are subjective issues that cannot be

quantified The revised guidelines say that a moratorium on the grant of

environmental clearance to industries in these areas will only be imposed after

a notice of one year from the announcement of the CEPI assessment

ldquoWhile action plans may certainly be prepared the polluting activity which is a

criminal offence cannot be allowed to be continued The essence of rule of law

is that no activity which is against the law is allowed to continue and the person

violating the law is punished according to law Thus merely requiring

improvement does not obviate the need for punishing the law violators or

polluters stopping polluting activity and recovering compensation for the

damage already caused so as to recover the cost of restoration is the mandate

of lawrdquo NGT said in its July 10 order adding that CPCB should come back to the

green court on how it had acted against these industrial clusters by November

NGT had taken suo-moto notice of a news story on industrial pollution and

made these orders to Central Pollution Control Board and Environment ministry

after CPCB submitted the CEPI ranking

In its final report on the compliance with NGTrsquos orders of July 10 submitted by

CPCB on November 1 CPCB said ldquoSince CEPI report including CEPI score

industrial areas coveredhellipis under consideration of MoEFCC ministry of

environment forest and climate change CPCB has requested MoEFCC vide

letter dated 992019 seeking approval to share information with state

pollution control board (SPCBs)rdquo

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

7

It also said the environment ministry had asked CPCB to hold a consultation

with various stakeholders on a mechanism for environmental management of

critically polluted areas Apart from the CEPI score very little is known about

the air quality of these critically polluted areas because of the lack of real time

air quality monitoring Bulandshahr Moradabad Kanpur and Varanasi for

example have one monitoring station each Ghaziabad which borders Delhi

has only one

ldquoThis ranking shows that several critically polluted areas with high air pollution

score are within the air shed of Delhi-NCR and that of larger Indo Gangetic plain

This demands regional air quality management and special measures to

eliminate dirty industrial fuels push best available technology and control

fugitive emissions in these hotspot areas Establish responsibility of upwind-

downwind polluters to clean up the airshedrdquo said Anumita Roychowdhury

executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment The regulatory

approach to pollution control requires a revisit said Kanchi Kohli legal

researcher at the Centre for Policy Research

ldquoThe limitations of CEPI are symptomatic of our approach to pollution control

and abatement The CEPI score can give a number or gravity to the lived

experience of pollution Notwithstanding the fact that the methodology and

access to the CEPI process is alien to most citizens there is no serious

evaluation by the government to assess the efficacy of this system to ensure

that remedial measures are undertaken Without that CEPI or online

monitoring system remains only on paper awaiting political actionrdquo said Kanchi

Kohli legal researcher Centre for Policy Research

Air toxic for young lungs but schools remain open

The air in the national capital appeared set to enter the emergency zone on

Friday but officials dithered on announcing a shutdown of schools citing a

technicality even as experts said young children should be kept indoors till

pollution levels ease The 24-hour average concentration of PM25 ultra-fine

particles reported by the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management-

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

8

Delhi NCRrsquos dashboard was at 2967microgm3 at 11pm on Thursday close to the

300microgm3 level that is regarded as the threshold beyond which the pollution is

considered to be at emergency levels The rise which was consistent since the

afternoon coincides with a rapid rise in the number of farm fires reported in

the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana ndash a key source of the pollutant

that is considered to be the deadliest of all particles in the air Since

Wednesday there were at least 5300 incidents of farm fires ndash the effects of

which are expected to be felt in the national capital region (NCR) soon

ldquoMorning time is worse for children to be outdoors since pollution is at its peak

around that time Their airways are developing and are narrower so they are

prone to more injury when breathing in heavy pollutantsrdquo said Dr JS Bhasin

senior Paediatrician BLK Hospital ldquoApart from throat and lungs pollution also

affects their eyes and skinrdquo he added Authorities in Delhi and Noida have

advised schools to cut down on outdoor activities though no order has been

given to shut schools for now Pollution control authorities have cited a slight

improvement that is expected in pollution levels by Sunday to resist from

ordering more serious curbs such a ban on schools But experts said this showed

the inadequacy of the air pollution plan and highlighted how it was reactive

rather than proactive in nature ldquoIt is time to have a re-look at the Graded

Response Action Plan (Grap) In most countries actions are taken based on

forecast But if we go by Grap then we would have to wait for the ldquosevere+rdquo

category air to last for at least two days to shut down schoolsrdquo said

environment expert Chandra Bhushan who asked ldquoWhat if pollution doesnrsquot

reach the ldquosevere+rdquo category and remains few notches below in the severe

category for a week Shall we not take any extreme action and wait for the

emergency categoryrdquo Grap lays down sets of curbs that are enforced when

AQI crosses certain thresholds ndash the most serious of these include a ban on

trucks odd-even road restrictions an embargo on construction work and an

advisory to governments to shut schools According to CPCB officials air quality

is likely to improve gradually but will remain in lsquovery poorrsquo to lsquoseverersquo zone over

the next two days It is expected to improve ldquosignificantlyrdquo on November 3

when surface wind speed is expected to pick up Sunita Narain a member of

Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ndash the agency that

orders governments to enforce curbs said ldquoWhile shutting down of schools is

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

9

listed under Grap and there is clearly a pollution emergency the fact remains

that children will still play outside even while at homerdquo The best option she

added ldquois to reduce their [childrenrsquos] exposure to outdoor activities which

schools are already doingrdquo ldquoWe are watching with great concern as pollution

is almost at emergency levels We may have to come up with more measuresrdquo

Narain said The Delhi government had shut down all schools on November 8

2017 for five days after the pollution remained in severe category This year

the air quality crisis has hit with similar intensity as recent years despite the

problem being an annual crisis and leading to several efforts -- laws fines and

cleaner fuel -- to combat it On Sunday people flouted a Supreme Court-

ordered rule to set off illegal fireworks adding to the toxic combination of gases

that has lingered on in the city since then Some measures of Grap had been

applied pre-emptively last week but benefits if any lasted only till the

afternoon of Diwali before emissions from celebrations and smoke from farm

fires covered the capital in a haze

Schoolkids inhale killer morning smog

It is the young lungs especially under five years of age that suffer the maximum

damage when air pollution levels peak say doctors For children the risk really

begins very early mdash right from the womb and continues through till early

childhood ldquoLong-term recurrent exposure to pollution is linked to

underdeveloped lungs in children low birth weight heart diseases stroke and

now studies show associations of pollution with reduced cognitive abilities as

wellrdquo Dr BK Tripathi professor of medicine Safdarjung hospital said

Short-term impact- The exposure to air pollution leads to immediate breathing

difficulties respiratory symptoms and irritation of the eye

ldquoChildren and the elderly are the most vulnerable mdash whatever symptoms

people are experiencing they are more pronounced in them In my clinic

people who already have existing conditions such as asthma and COPD are

coming with exacerbated symptomsrdquo Dr Sandeep Nayyar head of the

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

10

department of respiratory medicine allergy and sleep disorders BL Kapur

Super Speciality Hospital said

ldquoWhen pollution is at its peak children who already have minor breathing

issues get aggravated symptoms that donrsquot allow them proper sleep at night

Lack of sleep over a period of time can lead to altered moods and memory

issuesrdquo Dr Manvir Bhatia sleep medicine expert said Doctors usually advise

parents to ensure that their child stays indoors when pollution levels are high

ldquoParents should ensure that the child remains occupied with fun indoor

activities to prevent them from having mood issues and becoming irritablerdquo Dr

Rajesh Sagar professor psychiatry department All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi said The WHO report stated that children are uniquely

vulnerable to air pollution mdash they breathe faster than adults inhaling more

pollutants they live closer to the ground where pollution levels are

concentrated and they spend more time outdoors

Innovations to disinfect and purify the air that we breathe in

At any given time over 14 million people worldwide suffer from nosocomial or

hospital acquired infection (HAI) In India the rate of such infections is

alarmingly high at one per four hospital visits compared to one in 10 in Europe

and one in 20 in the US This is mostly caused by hospital rooms and specialised

units not being adequately sterilised At the same time air pollution indoors

and outdoors continues to soar in most of our cities In Delhi it touches severe

and hazardous levels in the winter months Both the phenomenon of indoor

and outdoor pollution has led a Bengaluru-based medical doctor and

entrepreneur Dr Kumaresh Krishnamoorthy to help develop solutions which

when adequately scaled up could go a long way in alleviating the situation As

an ENT specialist with a super-speciality in head and neck cancer surgeries and

in neurotology the doctor has always kept his brain ticking with new ideas and

is chief mentor to healthcare products that help people and the environment

and can be indigenously produced and hence affordable ldquoHospitals find it

financially unviable to import large-scale equipment to sterilise hospital rooms

so we experimented with UV light to come up with an indoor purifier which will

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

11

be affordablerdquo says Dr Krishnamoorthy who along with engineer P Rajsekhar

has successfully tested his product at a hospital and an NABL-accredited third

party lab The Bot was found to be effective against micro-organisms even at

20-feet distance The product which has an android phone or tablet interface

and an intelligent app to set all the equipment operating parameters is

awaiting a patent

Using UV light to advantage- ldquoThe most dreaded infections are MRSA

(methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) C diff (Clostridium difficile) and

VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) These micro-organisms are resistant

to antibiotics and are commonly referred to as lsquosuperbugsrsquo These infections

cause major problems and add a significant cost to the modern health sector

Cleaning and disinfection are not effective enough due to inaccessible areas

within hospital roomsrdquo Krishnamoorthy explains pointing out that UV-C

disinfection tops the list of solutions in the war against superbugs

When bacteria are exposed to UV-C light their DNA absorbs light energy and

causes cell damage that kills these micro-organisms And this is exactly what

the UVC Bot does It delivers around 1500 watt of lethal power which can

disinfect an entire room in a single cycle ldquoOur smart technoBasically logy

ensures that the same high energy lethal dosage is uniformly delivered across

a room including the often missed and hard-to-reach shadow areas resulting

in more effective germicidal power and thorough disinfection providing an

economical and effective measure in limiting the spread of bacteriardquo says the

doctor elaborating that the advanced Bot is enabled with an inbuilt tracker and

data collection allows for monitoring the duration of cleaning It even maintains

a log of the rooms that have been cleaned

Using the Bot Krishnamoorthy is also

The UV bot helps disinfect hospital environs (right) an installation to curb

outdoor pollution going to undertake a detailed study along with PSG Institute

of Medical Sciences and Research Coimbatore for different micro organisms

under varying concentrations and locations The Bot in fact has applications

beyond hospitals It can be used in hotels cruise ships and even for disinfecting

the blankets given out on long-distance trains ldquoThe blankets are not being

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

12

drywashed and are a source of infection The Bot could be used to make them

germ-freerdquo he explains

The outdoor contraption

While Dr Krishnamoorthy is excited about the prospect of bringing down the

rate of HAI in the country with the invention the team is also busy with

installing outdoor air purifiers in Bengaluru The outdoor air purifier

manufactured by Rajeev Krishna Founder of aTechTron with environment

start-up Waste2Watts as strategic partner is a contraption that is proving to be

very useful for the traffic police who bear the brunt of outdoor pollution The

purifier has a range of 90 to 100 feet and should ideally be installed every 200

feet the external air purifier sucks in the air cleans it and releases it into the

atmosphere ldquoWith RampD over the years we have made a three-layered

patented air filter The primary filter is a threelayered nano synthetic fibre the

secondary filter is a five-layered filter composed of nano and activated charcoal

and the tertiary is a double-layered one for catalytic conversionrdquo says the

doctor The contraption effectively filters out PM25 PM10 dust smog odour

petroleum fumes along with reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds)

NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SOx (sulphur oxides) The filters have been designed

such that they are effective in using non-clogging technology and can absorb

more air pollution over prolonged exposure Dr Krishnamoorthy points out that

the machines are weather-proof and emit no radiations such as pulse wave

emission or electromagnetic frequency waves ldquoWe are getting positive

feedback from the traffic police and hope more companies set these up as their

CSR projects and help to clear more of the airrdquo he says

NITI Draws Up Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The NITI Aayog has asked the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to

expeditiously conduct field trials of a technology that allows paddy straw to

decompose in fields as concerns mount over growing air pollution in the capital

due to stubble burning in neighbouring states The Aayog will work out a fiscal

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

13

package for quick adoption of the technology from next year after the field

trials said a senior government official

ldquoTechnology of decomposing straw in situ is available at the lab level We have

to standardise it and test it on the fieldsrdquo said NITI Aayog member Ramesh

Chand The idea is to use decomposers either in the form of liquid that can be

sprayed on the fields or use capsules that can decompose paddy or wheat

straws on the farm itself in three-four weeks after which they can be ploughed

back into the soil A scheme could be rolled out next year before the onset of

paddy harvest to avoid a repeat of the emergency-like situation in the National

Capital Region (NCR) largely on account of stubble burning around this time of

year Air pollution levels in the NCR breached the 500-level mark on the air

quality index (AQI) in the first week of November prompting the Environment

Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare it a public health

emergency which resulted in closure of nearly 600 schools in the NCR

Subsequently the AQI level shot up further to 900-mark in certain areas of

Delhi forcing the government to call a highlevel meeting to chalk out a strategy

The capital heaved a sigh of relief over the following weekend with clear skies

and AQI hovering between lsquomoderatersquo (100-200) and lsquopoorrsquo (200-300) levels

Penalise those spoiling ambient air quality NITI Aayog

In a four-pronged solution government think-tank NITI Aayog and the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) have released the report of the lsquoTask

Force on Clean Industryrsquo to tackle Delhirsquos air pollution crisis NITI Aayog has

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

14

recommended that mandatory contractual obligations be introduced on clean

construction for all individuals and organisations In the report it has also

emphasised mandatory fund allocation for ambient air quality management in

cities not complying with Ambient Air Quality Standards It has held that

Building Code and building by-laws should be strengthened for ensuring

ambient air quality during lsquoconstruction and end-of-lifersquo in accordance with

specific criteria for population density in receptor area and ambient air quality

data

Two-tier mechanism- NITI Aayog has suggested a two-tier mechanism for

penalties Urban local bodies (ULBs) should use portable emission monitoring

devices and low-cost sensors for measuring air quality and levy penalties of 5-

10 per cent of the project cost on individuals and organisations It also

recommended that State Pollution Control Boards in the National Capital

Region (NCR) levy a penalty on local bodies and authorities in lieu of the

estimated cost of damage Within 300 km of Delhi there are 56 coal-based

thermal units of which 15 are in the process of being phased out and closed in

the near future due to non-availability of space for Flue Gas Desulphurisation

(FGD) NITI Aayog has said that all of the rest are supposed to retrofit FDG by

2019 except one in Uttar Pradesh which is expected to do so by 2021 It stated

that priority status should be given to cleaner gas-based thermal power units

and coal-based thermal power units with advanced emission controls for

sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides and particulate matter The Indian Grid

Electricity Code (2010) should thus be amended An Inter-Ministerial Sub Group

constituted by the Infrastructure Constraints Review Committee headed by

Joint Secretary (Coal) must issue a guideline to the Railways and Coal India to

prioritise the allocation and transportation of coal to the cleaner power

producers based on priority dispatch order requirement

Utilising lsquobottomrsquo ash- NITI Aayog has noted that roughly 20 per cent of the

total ash which gets generated during combustion at a thermal power plant is

bottom ash which is coarse ash that gets collected at the bottom of the boiler

It has been highlighted by task force members that there is limited availability

of viable options for utilising the bottom ash from such plants As per member

inputs at least one global technology player claims to have used the bottom

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

15

ash and fly ash in a ratio of 31 but the technology is yet to be tested on Indian

ash More research and development will be required in future to utilise

bottom ash for value added products besides its application for road

construction mine-filling and for filling low lying areas Other

recommendations include leapfrogging to advanced (up to 50 per cent)

biomass co-firing in coal power plants in north-west region Co-firing is a near

term low-cost option for efficiently converting biomass to electricity by adding

it as a partial substitute fuel in high-efficiency coal boilers

NITI Aayog has observed that commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still

being evaluated at this stage Paddy-straw that remain unutilised and burnt in

the North-West India has the potential to generate about 6000-8000 MW or

45000 million units (m-kWh) of electricity annually it has been noted It added

that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is currently piloting

torrefaction of rice-straw in Punjab in partnership with a Swedish agency

Torrefaction is a thermal process which converts biomass into a coal-like

material Torrefied biomass once piloted and proved in existing coal power

stations in the region can pave the way for large-scale utilisation of biomass

(up to 50 per cent) without significant cost towards retrofit technology

Govt begins crackdown on vehicles using diesel mixed with

kerosene

Enforcement agencies in the city have now trained their guns on the use of

adulterated fuel in vehicles that contributes to the cityrsquos already toxic levels of

pollution From Sunday joint teams of the state transport department and

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) launched a crackdown against

vehicles suspected to be using adulterated fuel The drive was launched after

the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said there have been complaints that some

vehicles mixed diesel with kerosene in Delhi and the National Capital Region

The SC while directing agencies to initiate an intensive drive also said that in

cases where vehicles are found violating this norm the driverowner concerned

apart officers of respective departments will also be held responsible

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

16

Following this chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev on Saturday called an

emergency meeting and ordered the crackdown To this effect the transport

department and DPCC cancelled all their enforcement personnelrsquos routine

leaves (including Sundays) during the drive On the first day of the drive the

DPCC tested 28 samples of fuel from randomly selected commercial vehicles

including three-wheeled goods carriers

ldquoWe collected fuel samples mainly from border areas like Anand Vihar and

Mandoli in east Delhi during the drive on Sunday We will be collecting samples

randomly from busy stretches for over a week to check possible adulteration

particularly in areas identified as pollution hot spotsrdquo saidrdquo Arun Mishra

member secretary DPCC According to the pollution control bodyrsquos officials

most of the possibly adulterated fuel is from NCR towns as Delhi has fewer

diesel-run vehicles in comparison to neighbouring states

ldquoFrom Monday our focus will be on visibly polluting vehicles plying on city

roadsrdquo Mishra said

The Delhi government had previously identified 13 pollution hot spots in the

city Of these industrial areas will be the main focus area of the drive The key

areas include Wazirpur Okhla Dwarka Mundka Punjabi Bagh Jahangirpuri

and Anand Vihar which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh ldquoDPCC has already

tied up with at least two testing laboratories under the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research (CSIR) where samples collected during the drive will be

sent for tests We have also hired a panel of experts to assist in testing samples

as laboratories do not have the capacity to test these many samplesrdquo he said

Joint teams comprising officials from transport traffic police and DPCC have

been formed for the crackdown ldquoAction will also be taken against diesel-run

vehicles coming from other states This also includes diesel-run three-wheelers

other than trucks buses taxis and even private vehiclesrdquo Mishra added In

December 2015 an engineer had filed a plea with the National Green Tribunal

alleging that adulterated petrol and diesel was being sold at fuel stations in the

capital Following this the green panel had directed the pollution watchdog and

the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to carry out inspections KK Dahiya

special commissioner (transport) said the transport department has deputed

60 teams of at least 300 enforcement officers who started taking action from

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

17

Saturday night itself ldquoDiesel vehicles emitting smoke mdash a prima facie outcome

of the use of adulterated diesel mdash will be checked and impounded immediately

Our teams have so far impounded 69 visibly polluting vehicles in less than 24

hours The drive to impound such vehicles will continue till further ordersrdquo he

said When asked which department will be held accountable if kerosene and

diesel is found to be mixed the Delhi government said oil companies are tasked

with periodically inspecting and conducting tests at all fuel stations ldquoThey are

also supposed to deploy mobile testing laboratories to check possible

adulteration at the spotrdquo a senior official in the food and civil supplies

department of the Delhi government said The state food and civil supplies

department is the nodal agency for all fuel stations and LPG dealers Many

dealers resort to mixing kerosene in diesel because of the high price difference

between the two fuels At present diesel is sold at around ₹6580 per litre

while kerosene is priced at less than ₹50 in the open market for industrial

activities Delhi was declared a kerosene-free city in 2014 However

neighbouring UP and Rajasthan still use the fuel in their public distribution

system at rates of less than ₹20 per litre Officials said kerosene is still available

in Delhi for industrial use

Greenhouse Gases Hit New High UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018 exceeding the

average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly

damaging weather patterns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

said on Monday The UN agencyrsquos Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of a series of

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

18

studies to be published ahead of a UN climate change summit being held in

Madrid next week and is expected to guide discussions there It measures the

atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming rather

than emissions ldquoThere is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline in

greenhouse gasesrsquo concentration in the atmosphere - despite all the

commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Changerdquo said WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ldquoThis continuing long-term trend means that

future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of

climate change including rising temperatures more extreme weather water

stress sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystemsrdquo said a

summary of the report The concentration of carbon dioxide a product of

burning fossil fuels that is the biggest contributor to global warming surged

from 4055 parts per million in 2017 to 4078 ppm in 2018 exceeding the

average annual increase of 206 ppm in 2005-2015 the WMO report said

Irrespective of future policy carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for

centuries locking in warming trends ldquoIt is worth recalling that the last time the

Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years

agordquo Taalas said

Can smog towers help rid Delhi of choking pollution Experts

debate

A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to come up with a road map

on installing smog towers in Delhi-NCRthinspwithin 10 days to combat rising

pollution officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi

Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)thinspmet in the capital on Tuesday ldquoWe are

deliberating and will come up with a plan on how to implement it There are

various aspects that need to be looked into as the project involves high costs

and adequate spacerdquo said a senior DPCC official ldquoWe will be meeting experts

from the Department of Science and Technology and IIT scientists who are

working on this project to be able to take a decisionrdquo the official said

Installation of smog towers to curb pollution was first proposed to CPCB in

2018 A proposed pilot project to consider the efficacy of smog towers is being

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

19

undertaken by IIT-Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of

Minnesota The US-based institution has helped build a smog tower in Xian

northern China ldquoWe have proposed a prototype to deal with lsquoseverityrsquo of air

pollution It is to deal with acute situations and not the final solution to

pollutionrdquo said a senior IIT-Bombay scientist Sri Harsha Kota an assistant

professor at the department of civil engineering IIT- Delhi who is closely

associated with the project said ldquoIt is at an experimental stage and logistics

are yet to be decided There is no data or a model as such to test its feasibilityrdquo

The project is estimated to cost around ₹10-12 crore said project members at

IIT-Delhi Experts have questioned the feasibility of the project given that Delhi

is a congested city where space is at a premium Also they said there have

been no studies to assess the impact of this technology on the ambient air

quality Santosh Harish a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research said smog

towers may be the last resort in a place like Delhi where the nature and scale

of the problem different from other cities but there must be a proper

assessment before investing in the technology ldquoIt may remove some dust from

the vicinity but controlling pollution at source may not be possible Even in

China which has two such towers this technology was not well received or

widely implementedrdquo he said D Saha former head of CPCB air laboratory said

smog towers are not suitable to Delhirsquos meteorological conditions ldquoThere is a

constant intrusion of dust in Delhi because of various geographical and local

factors How much can a filter suck A model such as this cannot be successful

for a city like Delhirdquo

UN tells countries to focus on carbon emission targets

Countries will have to increase their nationally determined contributions (NDC)

to curb carbon emissions threefold to achieve the well below 2-degree Celsius

goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 15-degree Celsius goal a UN

Environment Programme report has said Days ahead of a crucial UN Climate

Change Conference (COP 25) at Madrid the Emissions Gap Report 2019 said

with the current pledges by countries to reduce carbon emissions there is a

66 chance that warming will be limited to 32 degrees Celsius over pre-

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

20

industrial levels by the end of this century This would mean widespread

displacement destruction owing to catastrophic climate change impact in the

coming decades The 2015 Paris Agreement has a goal of keeping global

temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and

to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 15 degrees Celsius The

report projected that emissions will be twice of what they should be in 2030

The G20 countries account for 78 of all greenhouse gas emissions but seven

of them do not have policies yet to achieve their NDCs On the progress of G20

economies India along with China the EU Mexico Russia and Turkey are on

track to meet their goals the report said India Russia and Turkey are projected

to overachieve their NDC emission targets

ldquoFor decades rich nations delayed climate action deliberately to protect their

polluting industries which has brought us to an emergency They cannot be

allowed to shift their responsibility on to developing countries who now face

dual burden of tackling grave impacts of climate change while they invest

resources in greening their economiesrdquo said Harjeet Singh Global Lead on

Climate Change at ActionAid International

Climate change is taking its toll on India

TV motoring star Jeremy Clarkson is now a believer mdash in climate change that

is For years Britainrsquos self-described ldquopetrolheadrdquo insisted global warming was

a global-sized hoax His conversion took place when he was filming his hit show

The Grand Tour and found drought-hit stretches of the Mekong river system

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

21

reduced to a ldquopuddlerdquo a situation he called ldquogenuinely alarmingrdquo Closer home

wersquove been seeing signs of climate change all around In earlier decades Delhi

residents pulled their woollens out of mothballs by mid-September when early

mornings and evenings turned chilly This year the woollens are aired and

ready but arenrsquot yet needed The weatherman has promised chillier

temperatures ahead but it doesnrsquot require an expert to tell us winters are

coming much later than before Even fans which should have been enjoying

their off-duty season are putting in overtime Winter in Delhi was also once the

season when the city heaved a sigh of relief after summerrsquos furnace blast and

was a time for outdoor parties This year therersquos a mucky smog so bad that the

Supreme Court this week called it ldquoworse than hellrdquo and apocalyptically offered

the opinion it would be ldquobetter to get explosives and kill everyonerdquo We

reminisce about how we once looked at photos of Beijing under a similar grimy

pall and wondered how they lived there Now we know mdash not well and itrsquos

defiling the air we breathe causing higher rates of respiratory and heart

disease strokes and cancer as well as making summers hotter and winters

shorter

Economic costs- Then therersquos the economic costs Global warmingrsquos made

Indiarsquos economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been

according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have

widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down

growth in hot places like India The World Bank calculates climate change will

shave nearly 3 per cent off Indiarsquos GDP and depress living standards of nearly

half its population by 2050 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates

Indiarsquos suffered $795 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-

change disasters Delhi of course gets all the publicity as the worldrsquos most-

polluted capital But the dirty haze has spread over a string of north Indian cities

and even drifted southwards as Punjab farmers burn stubble Indian cities easily

cornered 22 out of 30 spots on a Greenpeace list of the worldrsquos 30 most

polluted cities City-dwellers can don masks and pray their lungs arenrsquot too

horribly affected by air pollution But farmers canrsquot get through a season if

weather patterns start to alter And thatrsquos indeed what happened in a large

swathe of southern and western India this year In parts of Karnataka there

wasnrsquot enough rain in June-July so farmers postponed crop sowing But then

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

22

heavy unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops Kodagu

the coffee-growing region was particularly badly hit We may not know its

causes entirely but the harsh reality of climate change has been visible all over

India this year Itrsquos time we began searching for solutions but the political class

doesnrsquot appear to be ready to spearhead innovative initiatives The Delhi

Government faced by the smoggy reality of climate change quickly brought its

odd-even number scheme back into action and banned construction But this

yearrsquos odd-even scheme was even less effective than its implementation the

earlier time because two-wheelers which contribute mightily to pollution

werenrsquot included this time

Delhirsquos woes- Another cruel fact is that imposing an odd-even scheme isnrsquot

going to work unless itrsquos imposed in the entire National Capital Region But it

would be tough to introduce vehicle curbs in Delhirsquos satellite cities like Gurgaon

Noida Faridabad and Ghaziabad which donrsquot have effective public

transportation Incidentally it should be mentioned that the number of

vehicles in Delhi alone have soared stratospherically In 1988 some 23 million

vehicles plied on Delhi roads Now there are 112 million Effective public

transportation mdash with electric or CNG-run buses mdash must become a top priority

in Indian cities Pollution and climate change ignore borders but itrsquos cold

comfort to know Lahore may be the one city thatrsquos if anything worse than

Delhi Maybe we should take a glance across the border to see the conversation

there On Monday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Clean

Green Pakistan Index in which 19 cities from Lahore to Rawalpindi and

Bahawalpur will compete for awards and be measured on scores from clean

drinking-water to solid-waste disposal Khanrsquos talked airily about a scheme he

calls the Billion Tree Tsunami He possibly pulled the number out of a hat but

for once hersquos thinking on the right lines One immediate solution before us is

to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck

up pollution Indiarsquos the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide

(behind China and the US) though still one of the lowest per-capita emitters

So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon

infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution We shouldnrsquot

expect too much help from other parts of the world President Donald Trumprsquos

yanked the US from the Paris Accord Even China has cut back on its ambitious

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

23

renewable energy programme Climate-change experts now say it will be

almost impossible to cap global warming to 2oC as sought by governments

worldwide They forecast temperatures will rise 3oC by 2100 The higher levels

of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere have risen alarmingly in the last four

to five years (httpsclimatenasagovinteractivesclimate-time-machine)

The UN has been warning of runaway climate change with disastrous

consequences By 2030 India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs

due to global warming particularly in agriculture and construction an

International Labour Organisation forecast based on the discredited global

temperature target of a 15-degree C rise So the outlook could well be worse

In truth though we donrsquot need the experts to tell us what is happening Itrsquos

visible before our very eyes Donrsquot expect the politicians playing their numbers

games in State Assemblies to take action Itrsquos time for a peoplersquos movement to

make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority And it must start

now Pollution-sucking smog towers being sought by the Supreme Court may

be a band-aid but they arenrsquot the answer

Inadequate action fails to control lsquoquick-fixrsquo waste burning

Therersquos a gray cover over the city and yet burning of garbage in the open

continues across Delhi Incinerating waste is a quick fix for waste disposal

despite multiple orders banning this by the Supreme Court and National Green

Tribunal According to Sanjeev Lakra a resident of Mundka where garbage

burning is rife waste from the unauthorised industrial units are dumped at

random spots and burnt at night ldquoPeople from adjoining localities too bring

their garbage and light it up after darkrdquo Lakra said The Mundka resident

continued ldquoThe civic agencies have done their bit but itrsquos not enough Some

mechanical sweeping was done for a few nights but as the air quality worsens

burning of garbage is adding to our problemsrdquo Setting garbage on fire releases

chlorides into the air This can weaken the immune system irritate lungs and

cause respiratory disorders But biomass and waste burning continues and

accounts for around 30 of Delhirsquos pollution in winter and 18 in summer

according to an IIT-Kanpur study In 2015 NGT had directed authorities to levy

24

a fine of Rs 5000 on anyone found burning garbage in the open In December

last year NGT had slapped a fine of Rs 25 crore on Delhi government on being

told by residents of Mundka that industrial units continued to incinerate plastic

leather and motor engine oil despite the ban A day after the fine was imposed

TOI had visited the locality and there still were garbage smouldering at many

places On Tuesday evening a Delhi Pollution Control Committee official told

TOI that it had sent officials to the area and such fires were now doused In East

Delhi too as reported by residents TOI saw a few fires on Tuesday including

one near the Karkardooma metro station ldquoGarbage burning is routinerdquo

grumbled B S Vohra head of the East Delhi RWA Joint Front ldquoThe banks of the

Shahdara drain is a prime site for such activitiesrdquo Vohra rued that though there

was enough awareness about pollution people still failed to take the trouble

not to add to the pollution load but adopted expeditious methods with little

regard for noxious emissions ldquoItrsquos a shame that in spite of such adverse

circumstances the civic agencies have failed to check this menacerdquo said Vohra

When told about the Karkardooma fires an EDMC official casually said that ldquoa

small fire on DDA land behind Shanti Mukund hospital was detected and the

same was dousedrdquo Last month Bhure Lal chairman of the Supreme Court-

mandated EPCA observed dumping of garbage and burning of plastic in in

Mundka and Tikri Kalan and imposed penal fines of Rs 225 crore on the Public

Works Department Delhi Development Authority North Delhi Municipal

Corporation and South Delhi Municipal Corporation The Supreme Court gave

Delhi government seven days last Wednesday to fix 13 spots identified as the

most polluted in the city and warned the chief secretary it would not tolerate

inaction The 13 hotspots are Okhla Phase II Narela Bawana Mundka Punjabi

Bagh Dwarka Wazirpur Rohini Vivek Vihar Anand Vihar RK Puram

Jahangirpuri and Ashok Vihar

3 out of 4 nations may not meet their climate pledges Report

The pledges to cut down carbon emissions given by three-fourths of the

countries including India are insufficient to meet the ambitious goal of keeping

global warming below 15 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2030

25

according to a new report released last week An analysis of the current

commitments made by 184 countries to reduce emissions between 2020 and

2030 shows that 75 per cent of the climate pledges are partially or totally

insufficient to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50

per cent by 2030 said the report titled ldquoThe Truth Behind the Climate Pledgesrdquo

brought out by a non-profit organisation The Universal Ecological Fund The

report was authored among others by Robert Watson former Chair of the UN

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and James J McCarthy

former co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II which assesses the vulnerability of

socio-economic and natural systems to climate change Indias GHG emissions

the report said increased by about 76 per cent between 2005 and 2017 and is

expected to further increase till 2030 until 2030 even though New Delhi was

well on its way to achieve the pledged 30-35 per cent reduction of the emissions

intensity of its GDP by 2030 over the 2005 levels By 2014 India has already

reduced its emissions intensity by 21 per cent it may even go beyond 30-35 per

cent by 2030 But the economic growth in India is pushing up its overall carbon

dioxide emissions which have more than doubled from 12 gigatonnes of CO2

(GtCO2) in 2005 to 26 GtCO2 in 2018 Its electricity generation capacity in

instance increased three-fold since 2005 but 57 per cent of its electricity

generation is still dependent on coal Besides the report questions Indias

ability to meet the promises made on creating an additional carbon sink of 25-

3 GtCO2 Indias forest cover totals about 24 per cent of its geographical area

Since 2015 the annual increase of carbon stock has been 715 megatonnes of

CO2 But to meet the target of creating an additional carbon sink of 25-3

GtCO2 the annual carbon sink increase between 2016-2030 should be between

167-200 megatonnes CO2 This would require the double the rate of forest

cover expansion As a result while Indias commitment to reduce its emissions

intensity is indeed encouraging it will not result in a decrease in GHG emissions

below the current levels Thus Indias pledge was deemed insufficient to

contribute to reducing global emissions by 50 per cent by 2030

26

Why vehicular emissions are a constant in anti-pollution fight

Episodic sources such as stubble burning and firecrackers might have added to

Delhirsquos air pollution woes but the capital cannot afford to overlook the constant

sources of pollution mdash primarily transport industry and dust mdash whose

contributions put the entire National Capital Region in high risk for most of the

year The first-ever high resolution emission inventory of major pollutants in

Delhi-NCR done by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune

under ministry of earth sciences (MoES) showed that the share of vehicular

emissions increased not only in Delhi but also in the entire NCR in 2018 as

compared to 2010 It showed increase in share of transport sector in overall

PM25 emissions from 254 in 2010 to 41 in 2018 in the capital and from

321 in 2010 to 391 in 2018 in the NCR It said more than four-fold increase

in the number of vehicles on Delhirsquos roads during the 2010-18 period had

eroded the gains which could otherwise have accrued due to increasing

27

footprint of Delhi Metro in the past eight years This strengthens the case for

more public transport links in the NCR The emission inventory report released

by the MoES late last year analysed daily data on lsquovehicle kilometre travelledrsquo

(VKT) by different types of vehicles in the capital and observed that the

commercial four-wheeler segment including app-based cab aggregators such

as Ola and Uber was one of the major polluting sources in Delhi in 2018 ldquoLocal

car transport like OlaUberMeru etc have significantly high VKT of nearly

145000 km per year per carrdquo the report said It also flagged emissions of four-

wheelers registered in other states in the overall emissions from cars in the

capital It noted that cars from outside Delhi contributed to nearly 25-45 of

overall emissions from four-wheelers ldquoEvery day vehicle load in eight different

entry points of Delhi from other states is nearly 11 lakh The average speed of

vehicles on major roads in Delhi is just 20-30 kmhr leading to poor vehicle

mileage and more emissionsrdquo said the report which analysed vehicle

movements on 80 roads in different parts of the capital The analysis showed

that some roads such as India Gate Kashmiri Gate Peeragarhi and Sardar Patel

Marg among others experienced rising vehicle density on weekends as against

weekdays an observation which may help policymakers prioritise deployment

of public transport buses on such segments Though the report did not have

specific details on episodic sources its sectoral findings on overall annual

emissions with respect to eight key pollutants makes a strong case for working

simultaneously towards minimising emissions from key constant sources of

pollution including vehicles industries power plants and construction

ई-कचर क तमाम खतरय ो स बपरवाह कयो ह हम

जब जहरील धए न दिलली और उसक आस-पास लोगो की सासो म दसहरन पिा करना शर दकया तो

परशासन भी जागा और राजधानी स सट लोनी क सवागराम म पदलस न 30 जगह छापा मारकर 100 कवटल

स जयािा ई-कचरा जबत दकया असल म इन सभी कारखानो म ई-कचर को सरआम जलाकर अपन काम

की धातए दनकालन का अवध कारोबार होता था इसक धए स परा इलाका परशान था परशासन हरान था

दक इतना सारा ई-कचरा आकखर यहा आया कस अब पदलस क पास ऐसा कोई सथान नही ह जहा इस

कचर को सहजकर रखा जा सक डर ह दक घम-दिरकर आज नही तो कल वही पहच जाएगा जहा स

आया ह यह ऐसा कड़ा ह दजसक दलए जगह बनान या ररसाइदकल करन की वयवसथा हमन अभी तक की

ही नही ह एक अनमान ह दक इस साल क अत तक कोई 33 लाख मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाएगा

28

यदि इसक सरदित दनपटार क दलए अभी स काम नही दकया गया तो धरती हवा और पानी म घलन वाला

इसका जहर जीना मकिल कर सकता ह कहत ह न दक हर सदवधा या दवकास की माकल कीमत चकानी

होती ह लदकन इस बात का पता नही था दक इतनी बड़ी कीमत चकानी होगी िश की कारोबारी राजधानी

मबई स हर साल 120 लाख टन कचरा दनकलता ह िश की राजनीदतक राजधानी भी बहत पीछ नही ह

यहा सालाना 98 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाता ह और इसक बाि 92 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचर

क साथ बगलर तीसर नबर पर ह िभाागय ह दक इसम स महज ढाई िीसिी कचर का ही सही तरीक स

दनपटारा हो रहा ह बाकी कचरा इसस जड़ अवध कारोबार को आमदित करता रहता ह गर-सरकारी

सगठन lsquoटॉकिक दलक की ताजा ररपोटा पर भरोसा कर तो दिलली म सीलमपर शासतरी पाका तका मान गट

लोनी सीमापरी सदहत कल 15 ऐस सथान ह जहा पर िश का ई-कचरा पहचता ह और वहा इसका गर-

वजञादनक व अवध तरीक स दनसतारण होता ह इसक दलए बड़ सतर पर तजाब का इसतमाल होता ह जो वाय

परिषण क साथ ही धरती को बजर करता ह और यमना को जहरीला बनाता ह परान टीवी और कपयटर

मॉदनटर की दपकचर टयब ररसाइदकल नही हो सकती इसम लड मरकयरी कडदमयम जस घातक पिाथा

होत ह इसक साथ ही हम अगर बटररयो व मोबाइल िोन क कचर को भी जोड़ ल तो दनदकल कडदमयम

और कोबालट जस ततव भी इस कचर म अपनी भदमका दनभान आ जात ह कडदमयम स ििड़ परभादवत

होत ह जबदक कडदमयम क धए व धल क कारण ििड़ व दकडनी िोनो को गभीर नकसान पहचता ह

एक कपयटर का वजन लगभग 315 दकलो गराम होता ह इसम 190 दकगरा सीसा और 0693 गराम पारा और

004936 गराम आसदनक होता ह य सार पिाथा जलाए जान पर सीध वातावरण म घलत ह इनका अवशष

पयाावरण क दवनाश का कारण बनता ह इसम स अदधकाश सामगरी गलती-सड़ती नही ह और जमीन म

जजब होकर दमटटी की गणवतता को परभादवत करन क अलावा भजल को जहरीला बनान का काम करती ह

इन रसायनो का एक अदशय भयानक सच यह ह दक इसकी वजह स परी खादय शखला दबगड़ रही ह वस

तो क दर सरकार न 2012 म ई-कचरा (परबधन और सचालन) कानन लाग दकया ह लदकन इसम दिए गए

दिशा-दनिश का पालन होता कही दिखता नही ह मई 2015 म ही ससिीय सदमदत न िश म ई-कचर क

दचताजनक रफतार स बढन की समसया को िखत हए इस पर लगाम लगान क दलए दवधायी ति सथादपत

करन की दसिाररश की थी पर इस दिशा म जयािा परगदत नही दिख रही ऐसा नही दक ई-कचरा महज

आित ह झारखड क जमशिपर कसथत राषटि ीय धातकमा परयोगशाला क धात दनषकषाण दवभाग न ई-कचर

म दछप सोन को दनकालन की ससती तकनीक खोजी ह इसक माधयम स एक टन ई-कचर स 350 गराम

सोना दनकाला जा सकता ह समाचार यह भी ह दक अगल ओलदपक म दवजता कखलाद डयो को दमलन वाल

मडल भी ई-कचर स बनाए जा रह ह जररत यह ह दक कड को गभीरता स दलया जाए उसक दनसतारण

की गभीरता को समझा जाए

(य लखक क अपन ववचार ह)

29

Toxic air does deeper damage than we think

Air pollutants cause frequent lung infection chronic obstructive lung disease

lung cancer heart attack and stroke but lesser known is the long-term health

damage from non-cardiopulmonary diseases and infections One in eight

deaths in India is attributable to air pollution accounting for at least 11 of all

premature deaths in people younger than 70 years according to the most

comprehensive state-wise estimate of air pollution-related disease and deaths

published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2018 While most people associate

air toxins with lung disease 38 of the disease burden from air pollution in

India is from heart disease and diabetes found the study which estimated it

30

accounted for 1middot24 million or 12middot5 of the annual deaths The study found that

no state in India has an annual mean fine particulate matter 25 (PM25

micrometres are particles one-400th of a millimetre) lower than the WHO

recommended level of 10microgmsup3 with 768 of Indiarsquos population was exposed

to mean PM2middot5 more than 40microgmsup3 which is the recommended limit set by the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards of India

ldquoAir pollution is now the most pervasive public health threat across ages From

affecting the health of the unborn child through placental transfer and

damaging the lungs of the young child to asthma heart attacks strokes chronic

obstructive lung disease dementia and osteoporosis the list of health

disorders is growing in range of recognition by research and magnitude of

documented damagerdquo said Dr K Srinath Reddy president Public Health

Foundation of India

Among the lesser known extrapulmonary diseases of air pollution contributes

to and exacerbated are

Diabetes- Air pollution damages a several biological pathways associated with

glucose metabolism and leads diabetes Long-term exposure to PM10 in India

led to higher glycaemia and insulin resistance and exacerbated the progression

and complications of diabetes found the Wellcome Trust Genetic Study co-

authored by researchers from four institutes in Pune ldquoAtmospheric pollution

particularly PM25 and PM10 is directly related to inflammation insulin

resistance and diabetes which has been shown in India and several countries

Of equal importance is increased progression to complications of diabetes in

particular heart attacks in people with diabetes It is the leading cause of death

in people with diabetesrdquo said Dr Anoop Misra chairman Fortis Centre of

Excellence for diabetes metabolic diseases and endocrinology Exposure to

PM25 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from vehicular and power plant emissions

raises diabetes prevalence and levels of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c which is a

measure of glucose control over the past three months) according to

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health People with HbA1c

levels between 57 and 64 have a higher chance of getting diabetes 65

or higher indicate diabetes

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

25

according to a new report released last week An analysis of the current

commitments made by 184 countries to reduce emissions between 2020 and

2030 shows that 75 per cent of the climate pledges are partially or totally

insufficient to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50

per cent by 2030 said the report titled ldquoThe Truth Behind the Climate Pledgesrdquo

brought out by a non-profit organisation The Universal Ecological Fund The

report was authored among others by Robert Watson former Chair of the UN

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and James J McCarthy

former co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II which assesses the vulnerability of

socio-economic and natural systems to climate change Indias GHG emissions

the report said increased by about 76 per cent between 2005 and 2017 and is

expected to further increase till 2030 until 2030 even though New Delhi was

well on its way to achieve the pledged 30-35 per cent reduction of the emissions

intensity of its GDP by 2030 over the 2005 levels By 2014 India has already

reduced its emissions intensity by 21 per cent it may even go beyond 30-35 per

cent by 2030 But the economic growth in India is pushing up its overall carbon

dioxide emissions which have more than doubled from 12 gigatonnes of CO2

(GtCO2) in 2005 to 26 GtCO2 in 2018 Its electricity generation capacity in

instance increased three-fold since 2005 but 57 per cent of its electricity

generation is still dependent on coal Besides the report questions Indias

ability to meet the promises made on creating an additional carbon sink of 25-

3 GtCO2 Indias forest cover totals about 24 per cent of its geographical area

Since 2015 the annual increase of carbon stock has been 715 megatonnes of

CO2 But to meet the target of creating an additional carbon sink of 25-3

GtCO2 the annual carbon sink increase between 2016-2030 should be between

167-200 megatonnes CO2 This would require the double the rate of forest

cover expansion As a result while Indias commitment to reduce its emissions

intensity is indeed encouraging it will not result in a decrease in GHG emissions

below the current levels Thus Indias pledge was deemed insufficient to

contribute to reducing global emissions by 50 per cent by 2030

26

Why vehicular emissions are a constant in anti-pollution fight

Episodic sources such as stubble burning and firecrackers might have added to

Delhirsquos air pollution woes but the capital cannot afford to overlook the constant

sources of pollution mdash primarily transport industry and dust mdash whose

contributions put the entire National Capital Region in high risk for most of the

year The first-ever high resolution emission inventory of major pollutants in

Delhi-NCR done by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune

under ministry of earth sciences (MoES) showed that the share of vehicular

emissions increased not only in Delhi but also in the entire NCR in 2018 as

compared to 2010 It showed increase in share of transport sector in overall

PM25 emissions from 254 in 2010 to 41 in 2018 in the capital and from

321 in 2010 to 391 in 2018 in the NCR It said more than four-fold increase

in the number of vehicles on Delhirsquos roads during the 2010-18 period had

eroded the gains which could otherwise have accrued due to increasing

27

footprint of Delhi Metro in the past eight years This strengthens the case for

more public transport links in the NCR The emission inventory report released

by the MoES late last year analysed daily data on lsquovehicle kilometre travelledrsquo

(VKT) by different types of vehicles in the capital and observed that the

commercial four-wheeler segment including app-based cab aggregators such

as Ola and Uber was one of the major polluting sources in Delhi in 2018 ldquoLocal

car transport like OlaUberMeru etc have significantly high VKT of nearly

145000 km per year per carrdquo the report said It also flagged emissions of four-

wheelers registered in other states in the overall emissions from cars in the

capital It noted that cars from outside Delhi contributed to nearly 25-45 of

overall emissions from four-wheelers ldquoEvery day vehicle load in eight different

entry points of Delhi from other states is nearly 11 lakh The average speed of

vehicles on major roads in Delhi is just 20-30 kmhr leading to poor vehicle

mileage and more emissionsrdquo said the report which analysed vehicle

movements on 80 roads in different parts of the capital The analysis showed

that some roads such as India Gate Kashmiri Gate Peeragarhi and Sardar Patel

Marg among others experienced rising vehicle density on weekends as against

weekdays an observation which may help policymakers prioritise deployment

of public transport buses on such segments Though the report did not have

specific details on episodic sources its sectoral findings on overall annual

emissions with respect to eight key pollutants makes a strong case for working

simultaneously towards minimising emissions from key constant sources of

pollution including vehicles industries power plants and construction

ई-कचर क तमाम खतरय ो स बपरवाह कयो ह हम

जब जहरील धए न दिलली और उसक आस-पास लोगो की सासो म दसहरन पिा करना शर दकया तो

परशासन भी जागा और राजधानी स सट लोनी क सवागराम म पदलस न 30 जगह छापा मारकर 100 कवटल

स जयािा ई-कचरा जबत दकया असल म इन सभी कारखानो म ई-कचर को सरआम जलाकर अपन काम

की धातए दनकालन का अवध कारोबार होता था इसक धए स परा इलाका परशान था परशासन हरान था

दक इतना सारा ई-कचरा आकखर यहा आया कस अब पदलस क पास ऐसा कोई सथान नही ह जहा इस

कचर को सहजकर रखा जा सक डर ह दक घम-दिरकर आज नही तो कल वही पहच जाएगा जहा स

आया ह यह ऐसा कड़ा ह दजसक दलए जगह बनान या ररसाइदकल करन की वयवसथा हमन अभी तक की

ही नही ह एक अनमान ह दक इस साल क अत तक कोई 33 लाख मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाएगा

28

यदि इसक सरदित दनपटार क दलए अभी स काम नही दकया गया तो धरती हवा और पानी म घलन वाला

इसका जहर जीना मकिल कर सकता ह कहत ह न दक हर सदवधा या दवकास की माकल कीमत चकानी

होती ह लदकन इस बात का पता नही था दक इतनी बड़ी कीमत चकानी होगी िश की कारोबारी राजधानी

मबई स हर साल 120 लाख टन कचरा दनकलता ह िश की राजनीदतक राजधानी भी बहत पीछ नही ह

यहा सालाना 98 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाता ह और इसक बाि 92 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचर

क साथ बगलर तीसर नबर पर ह िभाागय ह दक इसम स महज ढाई िीसिी कचर का ही सही तरीक स

दनपटारा हो रहा ह बाकी कचरा इसस जड़ अवध कारोबार को आमदित करता रहता ह गर-सरकारी

सगठन lsquoटॉकिक दलक की ताजा ररपोटा पर भरोसा कर तो दिलली म सीलमपर शासतरी पाका तका मान गट

लोनी सीमापरी सदहत कल 15 ऐस सथान ह जहा पर िश का ई-कचरा पहचता ह और वहा इसका गर-

वजञादनक व अवध तरीक स दनसतारण होता ह इसक दलए बड़ सतर पर तजाब का इसतमाल होता ह जो वाय

परिषण क साथ ही धरती को बजर करता ह और यमना को जहरीला बनाता ह परान टीवी और कपयटर

मॉदनटर की दपकचर टयब ररसाइदकल नही हो सकती इसम लड मरकयरी कडदमयम जस घातक पिाथा

होत ह इसक साथ ही हम अगर बटररयो व मोबाइल िोन क कचर को भी जोड़ ल तो दनदकल कडदमयम

और कोबालट जस ततव भी इस कचर म अपनी भदमका दनभान आ जात ह कडदमयम स ििड़ परभादवत

होत ह जबदक कडदमयम क धए व धल क कारण ििड़ व दकडनी िोनो को गभीर नकसान पहचता ह

एक कपयटर का वजन लगभग 315 दकलो गराम होता ह इसम 190 दकगरा सीसा और 0693 गराम पारा और

004936 गराम आसदनक होता ह य सार पिाथा जलाए जान पर सीध वातावरण म घलत ह इनका अवशष

पयाावरण क दवनाश का कारण बनता ह इसम स अदधकाश सामगरी गलती-सड़ती नही ह और जमीन म

जजब होकर दमटटी की गणवतता को परभादवत करन क अलावा भजल को जहरीला बनान का काम करती ह

इन रसायनो का एक अदशय भयानक सच यह ह दक इसकी वजह स परी खादय शखला दबगड़ रही ह वस

तो क दर सरकार न 2012 म ई-कचरा (परबधन और सचालन) कानन लाग दकया ह लदकन इसम दिए गए

दिशा-दनिश का पालन होता कही दिखता नही ह मई 2015 म ही ससिीय सदमदत न िश म ई-कचर क

दचताजनक रफतार स बढन की समसया को िखत हए इस पर लगाम लगान क दलए दवधायी ति सथादपत

करन की दसिाररश की थी पर इस दिशा म जयािा परगदत नही दिख रही ऐसा नही दक ई-कचरा महज

आित ह झारखड क जमशिपर कसथत राषटि ीय धातकमा परयोगशाला क धात दनषकषाण दवभाग न ई-कचर

म दछप सोन को दनकालन की ससती तकनीक खोजी ह इसक माधयम स एक टन ई-कचर स 350 गराम

सोना दनकाला जा सकता ह समाचार यह भी ह दक अगल ओलदपक म दवजता कखलाद डयो को दमलन वाल

मडल भी ई-कचर स बनाए जा रह ह जररत यह ह दक कड को गभीरता स दलया जाए उसक दनसतारण

की गभीरता को समझा जाए

(य लखक क अपन ववचार ह)

29

Toxic air does deeper damage than we think

Air pollutants cause frequent lung infection chronic obstructive lung disease

lung cancer heart attack and stroke but lesser known is the long-term health

damage from non-cardiopulmonary diseases and infections One in eight

deaths in India is attributable to air pollution accounting for at least 11 of all

premature deaths in people younger than 70 years according to the most

comprehensive state-wise estimate of air pollution-related disease and deaths

published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2018 While most people associate

air toxins with lung disease 38 of the disease burden from air pollution in

India is from heart disease and diabetes found the study which estimated it

30

accounted for 1middot24 million or 12middot5 of the annual deaths The study found that

no state in India has an annual mean fine particulate matter 25 (PM25

micrometres are particles one-400th of a millimetre) lower than the WHO

recommended level of 10microgmsup3 with 768 of Indiarsquos population was exposed

to mean PM2middot5 more than 40microgmsup3 which is the recommended limit set by the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards of India

ldquoAir pollution is now the most pervasive public health threat across ages From

affecting the health of the unborn child through placental transfer and

damaging the lungs of the young child to asthma heart attacks strokes chronic

obstructive lung disease dementia and osteoporosis the list of health

disorders is growing in range of recognition by research and magnitude of

documented damagerdquo said Dr K Srinath Reddy president Public Health

Foundation of India

Among the lesser known extrapulmonary diseases of air pollution contributes

to and exacerbated are

Diabetes- Air pollution damages a several biological pathways associated with

glucose metabolism and leads diabetes Long-term exposure to PM10 in India

led to higher glycaemia and insulin resistance and exacerbated the progression

and complications of diabetes found the Wellcome Trust Genetic Study co-

authored by researchers from four institutes in Pune ldquoAtmospheric pollution

particularly PM25 and PM10 is directly related to inflammation insulin

resistance and diabetes which has been shown in India and several countries

Of equal importance is increased progression to complications of diabetes in

particular heart attacks in people with diabetes It is the leading cause of death

in people with diabetesrdquo said Dr Anoop Misra chairman Fortis Centre of

Excellence for diabetes metabolic diseases and endocrinology Exposure to

PM25 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from vehicular and power plant emissions

raises diabetes prevalence and levels of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c which is a

measure of glucose control over the past three months) according to

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health People with HbA1c

levels between 57 and 64 have a higher chance of getting diabetes 65

or higher indicate diabetes

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

26

Why vehicular emissions are a constant in anti-pollution fight

Episodic sources such as stubble burning and firecrackers might have added to

Delhirsquos air pollution woes but the capital cannot afford to overlook the constant

sources of pollution mdash primarily transport industry and dust mdash whose

contributions put the entire National Capital Region in high risk for most of the

year The first-ever high resolution emission inventory of major pollutants in

Delhi-NCR done by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune

under ministry of earth sciences (MoES) showed that the share of vehicular

emissions increased not only in Delhi but also in the entire NCR in 2018 as

compared to 2010 It showed increase in share of transport sector in overall

PM25 emissions from 254 in 2010 to 41 in 2018 in the capital and from

321 in 2010 to 391 in 2018 in the NCR It said more than four-fold increase

in the number of vehicles on Delhirsquos roads during the 2010-18 period had

eroded the gains which could otherwise have accrued due to increasing

27

footprint of Delhi Metro in the past eight years This strengthens the case for

more public transport links in the NCR The emission inventory report released

by the MoES late last year analysed daily data on lsquovehicle kilometre travelledrsquo

(VKT) by different types of vehicles in the capital and observed that the

commercial four-wheeler segment including app-based cab aggregators such

as Ola and Uber was one of the major polluting sources in Delhi in 2018 ldquoLocal

car transport like OlaUberMeru etc have significantly high VKT of nearly

145000 km per year per carrdquo the report said It also flagged emissions of four-

wheelers registered in other states in the overall emissions from cars in the

capital It noted that cars from outside Delhi contributed to nearly 25-45 of

overall emissions from four-wheelers ldquoEvery day vehicle load in eight different

entry points of Delhi from other states is nearly 11 lakh The average speed of

vehicles on major roads in Delhi is just 20-30 kmhr leading to poor vehicle

mileage and more emissionsrdquo said the report which analysed vehicle

movements on 80 roads in different parts of the capital The analysis showed

that some roads such as India Gate Kashmiri Gate Peeragarhi and Sardar Patel

Marg among others experienced rising vehicle density on weekends as against

weekdays an observation which may help policymakers prioritise deployment

of public transport buses on such segments Though the report did not have

specific details on episodic sources its sectoral findings on overall annual

emissions with respect to eight key pollutants makes a strong case for working

simultaneously towards minimising emissions from key constant sources of

pollution including vehicles industries power plants and construction

ई-कचर क तमाम खतरय ो स बपरवाह कयो ह हम

जब जहरील धए न दिलली और उसक आस-पास लोगो की सासो म दसहरन पिा करना शर दकया तो

परशासन भी जागा और राजधानी स सट लोनी क सवागराम म पदलस न 30 जगह छापा मारकर 100 कवटल

स जयािा ई-कचरा जबत दकया असल म इन सभी कारखानो म ई-कचर को सरआम जलाकर अपन काम

की धातए दनकालन का अवध कारोबार होता था इसक धए स परा इलाका परशान था परशासन हरान था

दक इतना सारा ई-कचरा आकखर यहा आया कस अब पदलस क पास ऐसा कोई सथान नही ह जहा इस

कचर को सहजकर रखा जा सक डर ह दक घम-दिरकर आज नही तो कल वही पहच जाएगा जहा स

आया ह यह ऐसा कड़ा ह दजसक दलए जगह बनान या ररसाइदकल करन की वयवसथा हमन अभी तक की

ही नही ह एक अनमान ह दक इस साल क अत तक कोई 33 लाख मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाएगा

28

यदि इसक सरदित दनपटार क दलए अभी स काम नही दकया गया तो धरती हवा और पानी म घलन वाला

इसका जहर जीना मकिल कर सकता ह कहत ह न दक हर सदवधा या दवकास की माकल कीमत चकानी

होती ह लदकन इस बात का पता नही था दक इतनी बड़ी कीमत चकानी होगी िश की कारोबारी राजधानी

मबई स हर साल 120 लाख टन कचरा दनकलता ह िश की राजनीदतक राजधानी भी बहत पीछ नही ह

यहा सालाना 98 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाता ह और इसक बाि 92 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचर

क साथ बगलर तीसर नबर पर ह िभाागय ह दक इसम स महज ढाई िीसिी कचर का ही सही तरीक स

दनपटारा हो रहा ह बाकी कचरा इसस जड़ अवध कारोबार को आमदित करता रहता ह गर-सरकारी

सगठन lsquoटॉकिक दलक की ताजा ररपोटा पर भरोसा कर तो दिलली म सीलमपर शासतरी पाका तका मान गट

लोनी सीमापरी सदहत कल 15 ऐस सथान ह जहा पर िश का ई-कचरा पहचता ह और वहा इसका गर-

वजञादनक व अवध तरीक स दनसतारण होता ह इसक दलए बड़ सतर पर तजाब का इसतमाल होता ह जो वाय

परिषण क साथ ही धरती को बजर करता ह और यमना को जहरीला बनाता ह परान टीवी और कपयटर

मॉदनटर की दपकचर टयब ररसाइदकल नही हो सकती इसम लड मरकयरी कडदमयम जस घातक पिाथा

होत ह इसक साथ ही हम अगर बटररयो व मोबाइल िोन क कचर को भी जोड़ ल तो दनदकल कडदमयम

और कोबालट जस ततव भी इस कचर म अपनी भदमका दनभान आ जात ह कडदमयम स ििड़ परभादवत

होत ह जबदक कडदमयम क धए व धल क कारण ििड़ व दकडनी िोनो को गभीर नकसान पहचता ह

एक कपयटर का वजन लगभग 315 दकलो गराम होता ह इसम 190 दकगरा सीसा और 0693 गराम पारा और

004936 गराम आसदनक होता ह य सार पिाथा जलाए जान पर सीध वातावरण म घलत ह इनका अवशष

पयाावरण क दवनाश का कारण बनता ह इसम स अदधकाश सामगरी गलती-सड़ती नही ह और जमीन म

जजब होकर दमटटी की गणवतता को परभादवत करन क अलावा भजल को जहरीला बनान का काम करती ह

इन रसायनो का एक अदशय भयानक सच यह ह दक इसकी वजह स परी खादय शखला दबगड़ रही ह वस

तो क दर सरकार न 2012 म ई-कचरा (परबधन और सचालन) कानन लाग दकया ह लदकन इसम दिए गए

दिशा-दनिश का पालन होता कही दिखता नही ह मई 2015 म ही ससिीय सदमदत न िश म ई-कचर क

दचताजनक रफतार स बढन की समसया को िखत हए इस पर लगाम लगान क दलए दवधायी ति सथादपत

करन की दसिाररश की थी पर इस दिशा म जयािा परगदत नही दिख रही ऐसा नही दक ई-कचरा महज

आित ह झारखड क जमशिपर कसथत राषटि ीय धातकमा परयोगशाला क धात दनषकषाण दवभाग न ई-कचर

म दछप सोन को दनकालन की ससती तकनीक खोजी ह इसक माधयम स एक टन ई-कचर स 350 गराम

सोना दनकाला जा सकता ह समाचार यह भी ह दक अगल ओलदपक म दवजता कखलाद डयो को दमलन वाल

मडल भी ई-कचर स बनाए जा रह ह जररत यह ह दक कड को गभीरता स दलया जाए उसक दनसतारण

की गभीरता को समझा जाए

(य लखक क अपन ववचार ह)

29

Toxic air does deeper damage than we think

Air pollutants cause frequent lung infection chronic obstructive lung disease

lung cancer heart attack and stroke but lesser known is the long-term health

damage from non-cardiopulmonary diseases and infections One in eight

deaths in India is attributable to air pollution accounting for at least 11 of all

premature deaths in people younger than 70 years according to the most

comprehensive state-wise estimate of air pollution-related disease and deaths

published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2018 While most people associate

air toxins with lung disease 38 of the disease burden from air pollution in

India is from heart disease and diabetes found the study which estimated it

30

accounted for 1middot24 million or 12middot5 of the annual deaths The study found that

no state in India has an annual mean fine particulate matter 25 (PM25

micrometres are particles one-400th of a millimetre) lower than the WHO

recommended level of 10microgmsup3 with 768 of Indiarsquos population was exposed

to mean PM2middot5 more than 40microgmsup3 which is the recommended limit set by the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards of India

ldquoAir pollution is now the most pervasive public health threat across ages From

affecting the health of the unborn child through placental transfer and

damaging the lungs of the young child to asthma heart attacks strokes chronic

obstructive lung disease dementia and osteoporosis the list of health

disorders is growing in range of recognition by research and magnitude of

documented damagerdquo said Dr K Srinath Reddy president Public Health

Foundation of India

Among the lesser known extrapulmonary diseases of air pollution contributes

to and exacerbated are

Diabetes- Air pollution damages a several biological pathways associated with

glucose metabolism and leads diabetes Long-term exposure to PM10 in India

led to higher glycaemia and insulin resistance and exacerbated the progression

and complications of diabetes found the Wellcome Trust Genetic Study co-

authored by researchers from four institutes in Pune ldquoAtmospheric pollution

particularly PM25 and PM10 is directly related to inflammation insulin

resistance and diabetes which has been shown in India and several countries

Of equal importance is increased progression to complications of diabetes in

particular heart attacks in people with diabetes It is the leading cause of death

in people with diabetesrdquo said Dr Anoop Misra chairman Fortis Centre of

Excellence for diabetes metabolic diseases and endocrinology Exposure to

PM25 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from vehicular and power plant emissions

raises diabetes prevalence and levels of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c which is a

measure of glucose control over the past three months) according to

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health People with HbA1c

levels between 57 and 64 have a higher chance of getting diabetes 65

or higher indicate diabetes

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

27

footprint of Delhi Metro in the past eight years This strengthens the case for

more public transport links in the NCR The emission inventory report released

by the MoES late last year analysed daily data on lsquovehicle kilometre travelledrsquo

(VKT) by different types of vehicles in the capital and observed that the

commercial four-wheeler segment including app-based cab aggregators such

as Ola and Uber was one of the major polluting sources in Delhi in 2018 ldquoLocal

car transport like OlaUberMeru etc have significantly high VKT of nearly

145000 km per year per carrdquo the report said It also flagged emissions of four-

wheelers registered in other states in the overall emissions from cars in the

capital It noted that cars from outside Delhi contributed to nearly 25-45 of

overall emissions from four-wheelers ldquoEvery day vehicle load in eight different

entry points of Delhi from other states is nearly 11 lakh The average speed of

vehicles on major roads in Delhi is just 20-30 kmhr leading to poor vehicle

mileage and more emissionsrdquo said the report which analysed vehicle

movements on 80 roads in different parts of the capital The analysis showed

that some roads such as India Gate Kashmiri Gate Peeragarhi and Sardar Patel

Marg among others experienced rising vehicle density on weekends as against

weekdays an observation which may help policymakers prioritise deployment

of public transport buses on such segments Though the report did not have

specific details on episodic sources its sectoral findings on overall annual

emissions with respect to eight key pollutants makes a strong case for working

simultaneously towards minimising emissions from key constant sources of

pollution including vehicles industries power plants and construction

ई-कचर क तमाम खतरय ो स बपरवाह कयो ह हम

जब जहरील धए न दिलली और उसक आस-पास लोगो की सासो म दसहरन पिा करना शर दकया तो

परशासन भी जागा और राजधानी स सट लोनी क सवागराम म पदलस न 30 जगह छापा मारकर 100 कवटल

स जयािा ई-कचरा जबत दकया असल म इन सभी कारखानो म ई-कचर को सरआम जलाकर अपन काम

की धातए दनकालन का अवध कारोबार होता था इसक धए स परा इलाका परशान था परशासन हरान था

दक इतना सारा ई-कचरा आकखर यहा आया कस अब पदलस क पास ऐसा कोई सथान नही ह जहा इस

कचर को सहजकर रखा जा सक डर ह दक घम-दिरकर आज नही तो कल वही पहच जाएगा जहा स

आया ह यह ऐसा कड़ा ह दजसक दलए जगह बनान या ररसाइदकल करन की वयवसथा हमन अभी तक की

ही नही ह एक अनमान ह दक इस साल क अत तक कोई 33 लाख मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाएगा

28

यदि इसक सरदित दनपटार क दलए अभी स काम नही दकया गया तो धरती हवा और पानी म घलन वाला

इसका जहर जीना मकिल कर सकता ह कहत ह न दक हर सदवधा या दवकास की माकल कीमत चकानी

होती ह लदकन इस बात का पता नही था दक इतनी बड़ी कीमत चकानी होगी िश की कारोबारी राजधानी

मबई स हर साल 120 लाख टन कचरा दनकलता ह िश की राजनीदतक राजधानी भी बहत पीछ नही ह

यहा सालाना 98 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाता ह और इसक बाि 92 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचर

क साथ बगलर तीसर नबर पर ह िभाागय ह दक इसम स महज ढाई िीसिी कचर का ही सही तरीक स

दनपटारा हो रहा ह बाकी कचरा इसस जड़ अवध कारोबार को आमदित करता रहता ह गर-सरकारी

सगठन lsquoटॉकिक दलक की ताजा ररपोटा पर भरोसा कर तो दिलली म सीलमपर शासतरी पाका तका मान गट

लोनी सीमापरी सदहत कल 15 ऐस सथान ह जहा पर िश का ई-कचरा पहचता ह और वहा इसका गर-

वजञादनक व अवध तरीक स दनसतारण होता ह इसक दलए बड़ सतर पर तजाब का इसतमाल होता ह जो वाय

परिषण क साथ ही धरती को बजर करता ह और यमना को जहरीला बनाता ह परान टीवी और कपयटर

मॉदनटर की दपकचर टयब ररसाइदकल नही हो सकती इसम लड मरकयरी कडदमयम जस घातक पिाथा

होत ह इसक साथ ही हम अगर बटररयो व मोबाइल िोन क कचर को भी जोड़ ल तो दनदकल कडदमयम

और कोबालट जस ततव भी इस कचर म अपनी भदमका दनभान आ जात ह कडदमयम स ििड़ परभादवत

होत ह जबदक कडदमयम क धए व धल क कारण ििड़ व दकडनी िोनो को गभीर नकसान पहचता ह

एक कपयटर का वजन लगभग 315 दकलो गराम होता ह इसम 190 दकगरा सीसा और 0693 गराम पारा और

004936 गराम आसदनक होता ह य सार पिाथा जलाए जान पर सीध वातावरण म घलत ह इनका अवशष

पयाावरण क दवनाश का कारण बनता ह इसम स अदधकाश सामगरी गलती-सड़ती नही ह और जमीन म

जजब होकर दमटटी की गणवतता को परभादवत करन क अलावा भजल को जहरीला बनान का काम करती ह

इन रसायनो का एक अदशय भयानक सच यह ह दक इसकी वजह स परी खादय शखला दबगड़ रही ह वस

तो क दर सरकार न 2012 म ई-कचरा (परबधन और सचालन) कानन लाग दकया ह लदकन इसम दिए गए

दिशा-दनिश का पालन होता कही दिखता नही ह मई 2015 म ही ससिीय सदमदत न िश म ई-कचर क

दचताजनक रफतार स बढन की समसया को िखत हए इस पर लगाम लगान क दलए दवधायी ति सथादपत

करन की दसिाररश की थी पर इस दिशा म जयािा परगदत नही दिख रही ऐसा नही दक ई-कचरा महज

आित ह झारखड क जमशिपर कसथत राषटि ीय धातकमा परयोगशाला क धात दनषकषाण दवभाग न ई-कचर

म दछप सोन को दनकालन की ससती तकनीक खोजी ह इसक माधयम स एक टन ई-कचर स 350 गराम

सोना दनकाला जा सकता ह समाचार यह भी ह दक अगल ओलदपक म दवजता कखलाद डयो को दमलन वाल

मडल भी ई-कचर स बनाए जा रह ह जररत यह ह दक कड को गभीरता स दलया जाए उसक दनसतारण

की गभीरता को समझा जाए

(य लखक क अपन ववचार ह)

29

Toxic air does deeper damage than we think

Air pollutants cause frequent lung infection chronic obstructive lung disease

lung cancer heart attack and stroke but lesser known is the long-term health

damage from non-cardiopulmonary diseases and infections One in eight

deaths in India is attributable to air pollution accounting for at least 11 of all

premature deaths in people younger than 70 years according to the most

comprehensive state-wise estimate of air pollution-related disease and deaths

published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2018 While most people associate

air toxins with lung disease 38 of the disease burden from air pollution in

India is from heart disease and diabetes found the study which estimated it

30

accounted for 1middot24 million or 12middot5 of the annual deaths The study found that

no state in India has an annual mean fine particulate matter 25 (PM25

micrometres are particles one-400th of a millimetre) lower than the WHO

recommended level of 10microgmsup3 with 768 of Indiarsquos population was exposed

to mean PM2middot5 more than 40microgmsup3 which is the recommended limit set by the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards of India

ldquoAir pollution is now the most pervasive public health threat across ages From

affecting the health of the unborn child through placental transfer and

damaging the lungs of the young child to asthma heart attacks strokes chronic

obstructive lung disease dementia and osteoporosis the list of health

disorders is growing in range of recognition by research and magnitude of

documented damagerdquo said Dr K Srinath Reddy president Public Health

Foundation of India

Among the lesser known extrapulmonary diseases of air pollution contributes

to and exacerbated are

Diabetes- Air pollution damages a several biological pathways associated with

glucose metabolism and leads diabetes Long-term exposure to PM10 in India

led to higher glycaemia and insulin resistance and exacerbated the progression

and complications of diabetes found the Wellcome Trust Genetic Study co-

authored by researchers from four institutes in Pune ldquoAtmospheric pollution

particularly PM25 and PM10 is directly related to inflammation insulin

resistance and diabetes which has been shown in India and several countries

Of equal importance is increased progression to complications of diabetes in

particular heart attacks in people with diabetes It is the leading cause of death

in people with diabetesrdquo said Dr Anoop Misra chairman Fortis Centre of

Excellence for diabetes metabolic diseases and endocrinology Exposure to

PM25 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from vehicular and power plant emissions

raises diabetes prevalence and levels of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c which is a

measure of glucose control over the past three months) according to

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health People with HbA1c

levels between 57 and 64 have a higher chance of getting diabetes 65

or higher indicate diabetes

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

28

यदि इसक सरदित दनपटार क दलए अभी स काम नही दकया गया तो धरती हवा और पानी म घलन वाला

इसका जहर जीना मकिल कर सकता ह कहत ह न दक हर सदवधा या दवकास की माकल कीमत चकानी

होती ह लदकन इस बात का पता नही था दक इतनी बड़ी कीमत चकानी होगी िश की कारोबारी राजधानी

मबई स हर साल 120 लाख टन कचरा दनकलता ह िश की राजनीदतक राजधानी भी बहत पीछ नही ह

यहा सालाना 98 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचरा जमा हो जाता ह और इसक बाि 92 हजार मीदटिक टन ई-कचर

क साथ बगलर तीसर नबर पर ह िभाागय ह दक इसम स महज ढाई िीसिी कचर का ही सही तरीक स

दनपटारा हो रहा ह बाकी कचरा इसस जड़ अवध कारोबार को आमदित करता रहता ह गर-सरकारी

सगठन lsquoटॉकिक दलक की ताजा ररपोटा पर भरोसा कर तो दिलली म सीलमपर शासतरी पाका तका मान गट

लोनी सीमापरी सदहत कल 15 ऐस सथान ह जहा पर िश का ई-कचरा पहचता ह और वहा इसका गर-

वजञादनक व अवध तरीक स दनसतारण होता ह इसक दलए बड़ सतर पर तजाब का इसतमाल होता ह जो वाय

परिषण क साथ ही धरती को बजर करता ह और यमना को जहरीला बनाता ह परान टीवी और कपयटर

मॉदनटर की दपकचर टयब ररसाइदकल नही हो सकती इसम लड मरकयरी कडदमयम जस घातक पिाथा

होत ह इसक साथ ही हम अगर बटररयो व मोबाइल िोन क कचर को भी जोड़ ल तो दनदकल कडदमयम

और कोबालट जस ततव भी इस कचर म अपनी भदमका दनभान आ जात ह कडदमयम स ििड़ परभादवत

होत ह जबदक कडदमयम क धए व धल क कारण ििड़ व दकडनी िोनो को गभीर नकसान पहचता ह

एक कपयटर का वजन लगभग 315 दकलो गराम होता ह इसम 190 दकगरा सीसा और 0693 गराम पारा और

004936 गराम आसदनक होता ह य सार पिाथा जलाए जान पर सीध वातावरण म घलत ह इनका अवशष

पयाावरण क दवनाश का कारण बनता ह इसम स अदधकाश सामगरी गलती-सड़ती नही ह और जमीन म

जजब होकर दमटटी की गणवतता को परभादवत करन क अलावा भजल को जहरीला बनान का काम करती ह

इन रसायनो का एक अदशय भयानक सच यह ह दक इसकी वजह स परी खादय शखला दबगड़ रही ह वस

तो क दर सरकार न 2012 म ई-कचरा (परबधन और सचालन) कानन लाग दकया ह लदकन इसम दिए गए

दिशा-दनिश का पालन होता कही दिखता नही ह मई 2015 म ही ससिीय सदमदत न िश म ई-कचर क

दचताजनक रफतार स बढन की समसया को िखत हए इस पर लगाम लगान क दलए दवधायी ति सथादपत

करन की दसिाररश की थी पर इस दिशा म जयािा परगदत नही दिख रही ऐसा नही दक ई-कचरा महज

आित ह झारखड क जमशिपर कसथत राषटि ीय धातकमा परयोगशाला क धात दनषकषाण दवभाग न ई-कचर

म दछप सोन को दनकालन की ससती तकनीक खोजी ह इसक माधयम स एक टन ई-कचर स 350 गराम

सोना दनकाला जा सकता ह समाचार यह भी ह दक अगल ओलदपक म दवजता कखलाद डयो को दमलन वाल

मडल भी ई-कचर स बनाए जा रह ह जररत यह ह दक कड को गभीरता स दलया जाए उसक दनसतारण

की गभीरता को समझा जाए

(य लखक क अपन ववचार ह)

29

Toxic air does deeper damage than we think

Air pollutants cause frequent lung infection chronic obstructive lung disease

lung cancer heart attack and stroke but lesser known is the long-term health

damage from non-cardiopulmonary diseases and infections One in eight

deaths in India is attributable to air pollution accounting for at least 11 of all

premature deaths in people younger than 70 years according to the most

comprehensive state-wise estimate of air pollution-related disease and deaths

published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2018 While most people associate

air toxins with lung disease 38 of the disease burden from air pollution in

India is from heart disease and diabetes found the study which estimated it

30

accounted for 1middot24 million or 12middot5 of the annual deaths The study found that

no state in India has an annual mean fine particulate matter 25 (PM25

micrometres are particles one-400th of a millimetre) lower than the WHO

recommended level of 10microgmsup3 with 768 of Indiarsquos population was exposed

to mean PM2middot5 more than 40microgmsup3 which is the recommended limit set by the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards of India

ldquoAir pollution is now the most pervasive public health threat across ages From

affecting the health of the unborn child through placental transfer and

damaging the lungs of the young child to asthma heart attacks strokes chronic

obstructive lung disease dementia and osteoporosis the list of health

disorders is growing in range of recognition by research and magnitude of

documented damagerdquo said Dr K Srinath Reddy president Public Health

Foundation of India

Among the lesser known extrapulmonary diseases of air pollution contributes

to and exacerbated are

Diabetes- Air pollution damages a several biological pathways associated with

glucose metabolism and leads diabetes Long-term exposure to PM10 in India

led to higher glycaemia and insulin resistance and exacerbated the progression

and complications of diabetes found the Wellcome Trust Genetic Study co-

authored by researchers from four institutes in Pune ldquoAtmospheric pollution

particularly PM25 and PM10 is directly related to inflammation insulin

resistance and diabetes which has been shown in India and several countries

Of equal importance is increased progression to complications of diabetes in

particular heart attacks in people with diabetes It is the leading cause of death

in people with diabetesrdquo said Dr Anoop Misra chairman Fortis Centre of

Excellence for diabetes metabolic diseases and endocrinology Exposure to

PM25 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from vehicular and power plant emissions

raises diabetes prevalence and levels of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c which is a

measure of glucose control over the past three months) according to

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health People with HbA1c

levels between 57 and 64 have a higher chance of getting diabetes 65

or higher indicate diabetes

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

29

Toxic air does deeper damage than we think

Air pollutants cause frequent lung infection chronic obstructive lung disease

lung cancer heart attack and stroke but lesser known is the long-term health

damage from non-cardiopulmonary diseases and infections One in eight

deaths in India is attributable to air pollution accounting for at least 11 of all

premature deaths in people younger than 70 years according to the most

comprehensive state-wise estimate of air pollution-related disease and deaths

published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2018 While most people associate

air toxins with lung disease 38 of the disease burden from air pollution in

India is from heart disease and diabetes found the study which estimated it

30

accounted for 1middot24 million or 12middot5 of the annual deaths The study found that

no state in India has an annual mean fine particulate matter 25 (PM25

micrometres are particles one-400th of a millimetre) lower than the WHO

recommended level of 10microgmsup3 with 768 of Indiarsquos population was exposed

to mean PM2middot5 more than 40microgmsup3 which is the recommended limit set by the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards of India

ldquoAir pollution is now the most pervasive public health threat across ages From

affecting the health of the unborn child through placental transfer and

damaging the lungs of the young child to asthma heart attacks strokes chronic

obstructive lung disease dementia and osteoporosis the list of health

disorders is growing in range of recognition by research and magnitude of

documented damagerdquo said Dr K Srinath Reddy president Public Health

Foundation of India

Among the lesser known extrapulmonary diseases of air pollution contributes

to and exacerbated are

Diabetes- Air pollution damages a several biological pathways associated with

glucose metabolism and leads diabetes Long-term exposure to PM10 in India

led to higher glycaemia and insulin resistance and exacerbated the progression

and complications of diabetes found the Wellcome Trust Genetic Study co-

authored by researchers from four institutes in Pune ldquoAtmospheric pollution

particularly PM25 and PM10 is directly related to inflammation insulin

resistance and diabetes which has been shown in India and several countries

Of equal importance is increased progression to complications of diabetes in

particular heart attacks in people with diabetes It is the leading cause of death

in people with diabetesrdquo said Dr Anoop Misra chairman Fortis Centre of

Excellence for diabetes metabolic diseases and endocrinology Exposure to

PM25 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from vehicular and power plant emissions

raises diabetes prevalence and levels of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c which is a

measure of glucose control over the past three months) according to

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health People with HbA1c

levels between 57 and 64 have a higher chance of getting diabetes 65

or higher indicate diabetes

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

30

accounted for 1middot24 million or 12middot5 of the annual deaths The study found that

no state in India has an annual mean fine particulate matter 25 (PM25

micrometres are particles one-400th of a millimetre) lower than the WHO

recommended level of 10microgmsup3 with 768 of Indiarsquos population was exposed

to mean PM2middot5 more than 40microgmsup3 which is the recommended limit set by the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards of India

ldquoAir pollution is now the most pervasive public health threat across ages From

affecting the health of the unborn child through placental transfer and

damaging the lungs of the young child to asthma heart attacks strokes chronic

obstructive lung disease dementia and osteoporosis the list of health

disorders is growing in range of recognition by research and magnitude of

documented damagerdquo said Dr K Srinath Reddy president Public Health

Foundation of India

Among the lesser known extrapulmonary diseases of air pollution contributes

to and exacerbated are

Diabetes- Air pollution damages a several biological pathways associated with

glucose metabolism and leads diabetes Long-term exposure to PM10 in India

led to higher glycaemia and insulin resistance and exacerbated the progression

and complications of diabetes found the Wellcome Trust Genetic Study co-

authored by researchers from four institutes in Pune ldquoAtmospheric pollution

particularly PM25 and PM10 is directly related to inflammation insulin

resistance and diabetes which has been shown in India and several countries

Of equal importance is increased progression to complications of diabetes in

particular heart attacks in people with diabetes It is the leading cause of death

in people with diabetesrdquo said Dr Anoop Misra chairman Fortis Centre of

Excellence for diabetes metabolic diseases and endocrinology Exposure to

PM25 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from vehicular and power plant emissions

raises diabetes prevalence and levels of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c which is a

measure of glucose control over the past three months) according to

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health People with HbA1c

levels between 57 and 64 have a higher chance of getting diabetes 65

or higher indicate diabetes

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

31

Anaemia- Chronic exposure to pollution raised systemic inflammation and

affect red blood cells production (erythropoiesis) leading to anaemia reported

a study in the journal Environment International Anaemia is defined as

haemoglobin count of lt13 gdL for men and lt12gdL for women and leads to

chronic fatigue lowers immunity impairs movement and lowers brain function

The study found that air pollution exposures were associated with a significant

increase in the prevalence of anaemia and a drop haemoglobin levels in older

adults in the US where chronic ambient air pollution levels are much lower

than across India

Osteoporosis- Two independent studies have linked high PM25 level with the

loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis-related fractures in people 65

years old and above in the US The first study found the risk of bone fracture

hospital admissions was greater in areas with higher PM25 concentrations

particularly in low-income groups The second study linked carbon

concentration in the air with higher loss of bone-mineral density over time at

multiple anatomical sites including femoral neck (where the leg bone joins the

hip joint) and ultradistal radius (bone in the forearm) which raises risk of hip

and arm fractures

Chronic kidney disease- High PM25 concentrations leads to increased chronic

kidney disease (CKD) and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) kidney

function decline (glomerular filtration rate or eGFR decline ge30) and kidney

failure according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology The risk of CKD and its progression was most pronounced at the

highest levels of particulate matter concentrations the study found People

living closer to a major road had lower eGFR than patients living farther away

found a study of living in the proximity to a busy road and kidney function in

the Boston area in the US reported a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health People living within 50thinspm of a major road had

39thinspmLmin173 m2 lower eGFR than those living 1000thinspm away which is

comparable to whatrsquos people who are at least four years older in population-

based studies The constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to

PM25 adds to risk of development and progression of kidney disease

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

32

Inflammation- Toxins in the air we breathe elevate levels of C-reactive protein

(CRP) a marker of systemic inflammation associated with inflammatory

conditions such as cardiopulmonary disease and several autoimmune

conditions including rheumatoid arthritis lupus and some inflammatory

bowel diseases such as Crohnrsquos disease and ulcerative colitis certain cancers

like that of the lung and possibly colorectal breast and ovary On high

pollution days when PM inhalation is unavoidable experts advise people over

65 years of age and those with existing diseases minimise exposure and use

anti-inflammatory treatment

ldquoEven in places where air pollution is comparatively low in India it exceeds

national and WHO norms during seasonal peaks leading to cumulative

exposure and sustained damage to the entire population Action must be local

but policies must address the concerns of the entire population to ensure

everyone gets to breathe clean airrdquo said Dr Reddy

Why more and more non-smokers are suffering critical lung

disease

Naresh Kumar had never smoked tobacco

He didnrsquot have a heart condition either But

for the last few days he has found it

difficult to breathe When his condition

didnrsquot improve the 58-year-old Delhiite

went to see a pulmonologist Kumar was

shocked to find that he was suffering from

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) a progressive disease of the lung

that is caused mainly due to smoking

Pulmonologist Dr Vivek Nangia of Fortis

Hospital however wasnrsquot surprised at the

finding ldquoCOPD among nonsmokers isnrsquot

rare anymore For the last two to three

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

33

years I have been seeing several such casesrdquo Dr Nangia told TOI He said that

usually COPD among non-smokers is linked to prolonged exposure to biomass

fuel or industrial pollutants but the patients we see have been exposed to

neither of the two ldquoWe suspect prolonged exposure to high levels of outdoor

pollution behind the increase in COPD among non-smokersrdquo Dr Nangia

claimed COPD is a progressive lifethreatening lung disease that causes

breathlessness Stopping exposure to noxious agents mdash like outdoor pollutants

or tobacco smoke mdash may result in improvement in lung function and slow or

even halt progression of the disease However according to a WHO document

once developed COPD and its co-morbidities cannot be cured and thus must

be treated continuously According to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria there

isnrsquot enough data available on number of persons suffering from COPD in India

who are non-smokers ldquoTheoretically it is possible that long-term exposure to

outdoor pollutants can cause the disease Small children who live in cities like

Delhi where the level of pollution is high through most part of the year are

most vulnerable We know for a fact that air pollution affects lung growth and

it can certainly lead to COPD and other serious respiratory diseases if the

exposure to pollutants remains highrdquo he said COPD is not curable but

treatment can relieve symptoms improve the quality of life and reduce the risk

of death Dr Inder Mohan Chugh director interventional pulmonology and

sleep medicine at Max Super Specialty Hospital Shalimar Bagh said often

people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age However

increasing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD ldquoCOPD is most prominent

during winters The effect of cold weather on lungs can be extreme and chronic

exposure to cold environments is known to cause dramatic and harmful

changes to the respiratory system Hence it is important that one visits a

specialist in case there is a single symptom indicating COPD A simple

spirometry (Pulmonary Function Test) test taken in time could save livesrdquo Dr

Chugh explained

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

34

Pollution an additional stress for heart patients

Winter had been a nightmare for 27-year-old Bilal Ahmed for almost two years

Bilal who had lost around 85 of his heart fuction and had been waiting for a

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

35

transplant became breathless and had chest pains every once in a while But

the number of times he had to visit the hospital emergency went up every time

the pollution levels spiked in the city More than half of Bilalrsquos nearly 15 yearly

visits to the emergency department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) were during the months when the pollution levels were high

ldquoThe pollution levels in the city troubled me a lot every ten to fifteen days I

would end up in the emergency with chest pains and breathlessness I got a

little better only when the doctors gave me some injectionrdquo said Ahmed who

underwent a heart transplant at AIIMS in March this year

He had dilated cardiomyopathy a condition where the heart chamber enlarges

and weakens reducing the heartrsquos ability to pump blood

ldquoWhen a patient is in heart failure their heart and lungs are already under a lot

of stress A spike in pollution levels puts more stress on the organs and

aggravates the symptoms of patients suffering from such conditionsrdquo said Dr

Sandeep Seth the doctor who treated Bilal and a professor of cardiology at

AIIMS For patients like Bilal whose condition cannot be reversed heart

transplant is the only option ldquoI could barely do anything when I was waiting for

a transplant Moving around felt like a huge task Even during my initial

consultation with a cardiologist I was told that I would need a transplant

because there was hardly any heart function leftrdquo said Bilal who runs a saloon

in Pitampura Every year almost 10000 people in the country need a heart

transplant but only 150 to 200 receive it because of a shortage of organs There

is a severe shortage of all organs ndash only 8000 of the two lakh in need of a kidney

transplant get it and almost 1800 of nearly 80000 in need of liver transplant

get it In India the rates of organ donation is very low ndash only 08 per million

population To promote organ donation the Organ Retrieval and Banking

Organisation at AIIMS felicitated the families of organ tissue and whole body

donors on Wednesday Air pollution is also a major risk factor for several cardiac

diseases especially heart attack

ldquoIt is well known that pollution increases the risk of heart attack and stroke

along with respiratory ailments The link between air pollution and conditions

like hypertension and diabetes is also well known which are risk factors for

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

36

several heart diseasesrdquo said Dr Sharma A study published in Lancet Global

Health last year shows that ischaemic heart disease lead to 238 of all

pollution related disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or the number of years

lost due to ill-health attributable to pollution The study showed that Indians

would live 17 years more on average if there was no air pollution

ldquoWhen ORBO was set up the deceased donation activity was negligible in Delhi

ORBO started facilitating organ donation started a brain death donor registry

and carried out mass awareness Now we have a real-time mandatory

notification of all brain dead patients and also round the clock availability of

transplant coordination staff We are the first institute to have started itrdquo said

Dr Aarti Vij head of ORBO

State-run oil companies take a knock

Weak refining margins subdued volumes and inventory losses took a toll on

the performance of the three public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) mdash

Indian Oil BPCL and HPCL mdash in the recent September 2019 quarter Indian Oilrsquos

consolidated profit in the quarter fell nearly 86 per cent y-o-y to ₹468 crores

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

37

while that of HPCL fell about 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹762 crores BPCL did better

than its peers with about a 3 per cent rise in profit to ₹1503 crores but this too

was nothing to write home about But for a tax-reversal of about ₹580 crores

BPCLrsquos bottom-line too would have shrunk The major drag on the companiesrsquo

performance was a sharp fall in their gross refining margin (GRM) mdash the

difference between the price of their product slate and the cost of crude oil

Indian Oilrsquos reported GRM in the September 2019 quarter fell the most to $13

a barrel from $68 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos reported GRM fell to $34 a

barrel from $56 and that of HPCL fell to $28 a barrel from $48 in the year-

ago period

Many a trouble- While inventory losses due to dip in fuel prices aggravated the

impact on reported GRMs especially for Indian Oil the core GRMs too were

weak during the quarter except for BPCL which saw some rise Weak domestic

economic conditions and resultant subdued volumes especially the

contraction in diesel sales adversely impacted the financial performance and

margins of the OMCs Also a planned shutdown at HPCL to upgrade to BS-VI

fuels did not help Indian Oilrsquos sales revenue fell about 16 per cent y-o-y in the

September 2019 quarter while that of HPCL and BPCL fell 10-11 per cent y-o-

y Marketing margins for the three companies improved in the quarter

compared with the year-ago period but this could not make up for the other

challenges Interestingly all the three companies have chosen for now to

continue with the earlier tax regime They have not shifted to the recently

announced lower corporate tax rate regime that would have entailed giving up

some tax incentives including lapse of the accumulated MAT (Minimum

Alternate Tax) credit The weakness in gross refining margin in the September

2019 quarter is a continuation of what was seen in the June 2019 quarter So

for the six months from April to September 2019 Indian Oilrsquos GRM crashed to

$296 a barrel from $845 in the year-ago period BPCLrsquos GRM for the six months

ended September 2019 more than halved to $310 a barrel from $652 in the

year-ago period and HPCLrsquos GRM too fell sharply to $187 from $593 The

environment in the refining market remains weak and so does the demand

conditions given the growth challenges in the economy This could reflect in

the financial performance of the OMCs in the coming quarters too On the

positive side the International Maritime Organizationrsquos regulations that

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

38

mandate cleaner fuels for ships come into effect in January 2020 This should

translate into an increase in demand for the higher-grade products of the OMCs

and support their GRMs The weak financial performance of the OMCs has also

reflected in their stock performance Since early June the Indian Oil and HPCL

stocks have fallen about 22 per cent and 11 per cent respectively The BPCL

stock was also on the back foot until a couple of months ago when news about

the impending stake sale by the Centre in the company saw the stock taking

off it is now up about 20 per cent since early June

Indian Oil Q2 net plunges over 82 to ₹563 crore on

inventory loss

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has reported a ₹56342 crore net profit for the

quarter ending September 30 2019 This is over 82 per cent lower than the

₹324693 crore net profit reported by the company in the corresponding

period of the previous financial year

ldquoThe variation is largely on account of inventory loss There was an inventory

loss of ₹1807 crores in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 In

the corresponding period of 2018-2019 there was an inventory gain of ₹2895

croresrdquo Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh said The lower profits are also due

to subdued global gasoline prices Singh added On a per-barrel basis the Gross

Refinery Margin (gain per barrel of crude oil processed) stood at $128 a barrel

during the quarter under review Indian Oil had reported a GRM of $ 679 a

barrel during the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal Core GRM (the

gain per barrel of crude oil processed without the inventory loss or gain) stood

at $399 per barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2019 This stood at $

588 a barrel in the quarter ending September 30 2018 Revenue from

Operations during the quarter under review stood at ₹132376 crore compared

to ₹151567 crores in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2018-

2019 Commenting on the aim to roll-out cleaner Bharat Stage VI grade auto

fuel from April 1 2020 Singh said ldquoWe may meet the target of a nationwide

rollout of BS VI grade fuel even before April 1 We have already started

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

39

supplying BS VI grade fuel in Delhi-National Capital Region which has

commands around 10 per cent of the nationwide consumptionrdquo Taking a jibe

at auto manufacturers that have been crying foul about the strict deadlines for

roll-out of vehicles with better emissions Singh said ldquoWe have been supplying

Delhi-NCT with BS-VI grade fuels for over a year now how many BS-VI

compliant cars do you see on the roadrdquo

India to allow foreign cos to bid in oil sector sell off

India will allow global energy companies to bid during the strategic

disinvestment of state-run oil companies oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has

said He added that the proposed partnership with Saudi Aramco and Abu

Dhabirsquos ADNOC for building a $44-billion mega refinery complex in Maharashtra

was on ldquoright trackrdquo Reports from Abu Dhabi where Pradhan is attending the

energy conference and exhibition ADIPEC quoted the minister as saying that

the doors for foreign direct investments in Indiarsquos fuel retail market were

opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met oil company bosses in

Houston during his recent US visit The Prime Ministerrsquos round-table was

attended among others by chief executives of Exxon Mobil BP Royal Dutch

Shell Rosneft Saudi Aramco and ADNOC Agency reports quoted Pradhan as

telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that India was ldquoinvitingrdquo foreign majors and he

was ldquoenthusiasticrdquo about their participation The government is planning to

hive off Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) the countryrsquos third-largest fuel retailer and

second-largest refiner in the public sector It also holds the view that ONGC was

free to sell Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) the countryrsquos secondlargest fuel

retailer and thirdlargest public sector refiner During Modirsquos first term the

government had sold its entire 51 stake in HPCL to flagship explorer ONGC

with the aim of creating ldquoworld classrdquo integrated oil company to compete with

global majors

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

40

Indian Oil develops winter grade diesel for Ladakh

Indian Oil Corporation has developed winter-grade diesel for Ladakh to address

the problem of loss of fluidity in fuel during extreme winter conditions This

product has been developed by IOCLrsquos Panipat Refinery A company statement

said ldquoUsing the normal grade of diesel fuel becomes an arduous task for the

people in the winter months where temperatures fall to sub zero temperatures

of nearly ndash30 degrees Celsiusrdquo ldquoHowever the winter grade diesel produced by

Panipat Refinery for the first time has a pour point of ndash 33oC and does not lose

its fluidity function even in the extreme winter weather of the region unlike the

normal grade of diesel which becomes exceedingly difficult to utiliserdquo the

statement said ldquoThis winter grade diesel also meets BIS specification of BS-VI

grade diesel and has been successfully produced and certified for the first time

by Panipat Refinery on November 8 2019rdquo the statement added The first Tank

truck containing winter grade diesel has been flagged off from the Panipat

Marketing Complex of IndianOil Subsequent supplies of winter grade diesel

would be done from the Jalandhar POL Terminal from where this fuel grade

would reach the Leh and Kargil Depot to meet demands of customers of Leh-

Ladakh region during peak winters

IOC may bid for BPCL stake in Numaligarh Refinery

Indian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) may emerge one of the contenders for

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) once the Centre initiates the disinvestment

process The Centre recently announced plans to divest Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltdrsquos 6165 per cent shareholding in NRL along with transfer of

management control to a Central PSU in the oil and gas sector Asked if

IndianOil will look at NRL IndianOil Chairman Sanjiv Singh told BusinessLine

ldquoLet us see how it comes (the offer) The process is all the same whichever

company pitches inrdquo On some prodding he said ldquoNo we are not ruling out

anythingrdquo He however hinted that competition could come from Oil India Ltd

a key PSUs explorer with high stakes in the North-East

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

41

No supply issues- Indian Oil one of the biggest oil refining-cum-retailing PSUs

does not foresee any supply issues due to geopolitics ldquoIn the second half of the

current financial year a lot of pipeline infrastructure will come up for taking out

more crude oil We are still not seeing enough crude oil coming out from the

US The US is exporting the same volumes The spare capacity in the US can help

in balancing the oil market to offset any cuts that are happening The key will

remain outside OPEC and OPEC+rdquo said Singh IndianOil imports about 70

million tonnes per annum of crude oil Today over 50 per cent of its crude

requirements are met through term contracts and the remaining from the spot

market Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain its largest suppliers besides Nigeria

Kuwait Angola and the UAE

Crude sourcing mix- Asked if IndianOil has seen a shift in its crude sourcing mix

Singh said ldquoWe have yet to do the formal tying up for the next year because a

couple of countries follow the calendar year and the majority follow the

financial year We donrsquot foresee any drastic change in our sourcing mix There

would be a few changes because we tie up the majority of our requirements

through term (contracts) more than 50 per cent Our spot has slightly

increased over the years But you donrsquot change these term volumes very

drasticallyrdquo Term quantities changed drastically are not because they come

mostly from national oil companies Singh added Once the term contracts end

gaining those volumes from those countries might take time as diplomatic

processes are involved he said On American crude oil Singh said ldquoFrom the

US we have contracted close to 4 million tonnes of crude mdash both firm and

optional Itrsquos a term contract but we also take US crude from spot They are

giving it so cheap that even after loading the transportation cost it remains

competitiverdquo Asked if it is a distress sale by the US Singh said ldquoIt is not a

distress sale because if that were the case every time I should be getting US

crude The spot pricing negotiations work on a projected price after two months

and we are not sure if they are assessing the price movements that we are We

have never seen US crude come under a distress sale They are competitive

but there are also times they are just not thererdquo

Problem of logistics- Where does Russia feature in Indiarsquos scheme of things

ldquoWe are in advanced talks with Russia for bringing crude From western Russia

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

42

they are able to sell to Europe through pipelines From eastern Russia Korea

Japan and others get the oil The challenge for us is logistics We cannot get

VLCC (very large crude carriers) through the Suez Canal ldquoBesides they do not

have surplus either Probably some of their supplies to other players can come

to us We have to find a way to make it attractive for both of usrdquo Singh said

On Iran he said ldquoWe are still following the sanctions If something comes up

we may open againrdquo

Aramcorsquos success may be a boon for Indian refiners

The wait ended on Sunday when Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco

announced its blockbuster IPO Everyone would like to be part of this story

directly or indirectly And so will be Indian refining and marketing companies

but how much only time will tell Aramco which is already finding its footings

in Indiarsquos downstream oil market could also emerge as a key contender for

acquiring domestic companies here

K Ravichandran Senior Vice President Group Head-Corporate Ratings ICRA

Limited said The reported valuation of $171 trillion and IPO size of around

$25 billion have come at the upper end of the range of market expectations If

the company is able to go ahead with this fund raising it will be a significant

positive for the MampA deals for some of the Indian refining and marketing

companies as one can expect Saudi Aramco to bid aggressively for Indian

companies given the vast market growth potential India offers

Also read Are Mukesh Ambani Indiarsquos wealth fund NIIF looking to buy into

Aramco IPO

Finding a mention in the Aramco IPO prospectus is Reliance Industries Ltd The

company has recently entered into non-binding agreements regarding the

expansion of its downstream business in Asia including entering into a non-

binding letter of intent with Reliance Industries Limited on 12 August 2019 to

purchase a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals division it read

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

43

Vandana Hari Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights said As Aramco goes into

its long-awaited IPO potential investors are going to carefully weigh all the pros

and cons of buying shares in the company and especially comparing it with oil

majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell if it is about betting on the global oil

markets There are some cons that Aramco cant do much about Concerns

over its geopolitical and operational risk as well as corporate governance and

tight government control are among them she said adding But among the

pros Aramco is counting on its upstream heft hedged by downstream

diversification In that regard diversification outside the Kingdom and a

presence in the big and fast-growing markets such as India count as a big plus

The stake purchase in Reliance refining and petrochemicals and in the planned

grassroots Joint Venture refinery was a well thought-out and carefully executed

strategy to complete an image of a global integrated oil company she pointed

out During Prime Minister Narendra Modirsquos visit to the Kingdom it was

acknowledged that energy security is one of the prime areas of Indiarsquos

engagement with Saudi Arabia which plays a vital role as a reliable source for

the countryrsquos long-term energy supplies Both countries are keen to transform

the buyer-seller relationship in this sector into a much broader strategic

partnership based on mutual complementarities and interdependence From a

purely buyer-seller relationship India and Saudi Arabia are now moving toward

a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in

downstream oil and gas projects We value the Kingdomrsquos vital role as an

important and reliable source of our energy requirements We believe that

stable oil prices are crucial for the growth of the global economy particularly

for developing countries Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and

petrochemical project on Indiarsquos west coast We are also looking forward to the

participation of Aramco in Indiarsquos Strategic Petroleum Reserves the Prime

Minister had said

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

44

Update Electricity Act to include norms for energy storage

FICCI-EY study

There is a need to update the current Electricity Act to incorporate provisions

for ensuring the deployment of storage infrastructure according to a joint

report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and

EY The report titled Battery Storage-The Next Big Energy Frontier said ldquoSince

there is no section on energy storage in the Electricity Act there is a need of an

updated Act which defines energy storagerdquo

Power distribution companies- The report said that there is a need of a revised

Regulatory Framework for power distribution companies (DISCOMs)

Highlighting the provisions that need to be updated the report suggested that

the Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions and the State Electricity

Regulatory Commissions can introduce some guidelines to provide clarification

about requirement of licence for setting up energy storage systems There is a

need to create grid interconnection standards for the use of storage on a stand-

alone basis and as part of generation transmission andor distribution assets

the report added The report also said that the DISCOMs would need monetary

support to encourage deployment of storage systems ldquoThe financial health of

most utilities is not good in India Thus they need monetary support from

government to invest in this opportunityrdquo the report said

Energy storage projects- ldquoOne way in which government can provide financial

help is by setting up a fund for accelerating the deployment of grid scale energy

storage projects by DISCOMs in the early years The government in turn can be

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

45

benefited as they can explore learnings from these projects which can help

market adoption by addressing technology policy and commercial risksrdquo the

report said Speaking at the event to mark the launch of this report Additional

Secretary (Energy) NITI Aayog R P Gupta said ldquoHopefully in short period of time

a new policy will come in place to encourage domestic manufacturersWhat

we have estimated is that if we come out with proper policies and solutions for

energy efficiency then the total energy requirement can be reduced by 20 per

centrdquo

Power sector Focus on other pain points

On the face of it media reports painted a scary picture One report mentioned

that as many as 262 thermal power units had shut down operations by early

November Many of them have been shut for weeks Another report said Coal

Indiarsquos output fell to its lowest in six years in September on account of heavy

rains Not just that Its coal shipment that month was a fiveyear low Central

Electricity Authority (CEA) data revealed that the plant load factor (PLF) of

thermal units in the April-September 2019 period (at 5767 per cent) was the

lowest in a decade Even worse by End-September it had dropped further to

51 per cent Under these circumstances the country should have been in a

state of crisis with a crippling electricity shortage that would have brought

industrial commercial and retail consumers to their knees But that is not the

case This fiscal peak demand for electricity has been more or less met The

deficit was just 07 per cent To put this in perspective a decade ago this

shortfall in meeting peak demand was 127 per cent This has been possible

because India has finally overcome the capacity constraint that dogged power

generation since Independence That indeed is a significant achievement In

fact the total generation capacity today at 364960 MW is good enough to

meet any surge in demand for the next few years even if economic growth picks

up pace Frequent load shedding and tripping of the electricity grids it appears

is history Having said that it is too early to uncork the Champagne bottle Not

all supply-side issues have been resolved Any mature power sector will have

sufficient reserve capacity anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

46

generation capacity to meet the seasonal swings in peak power demand India

traditionally never had this luxury Most thermal power plants operated at a

PLF of 90 per cent or more to meet the tight demand-supply situation often at

the cost of preventive maintenance which resulted in them breaking down

causing disruption in power supply

Reserve capacity-

But what we have at the moment is a reserve capacity that is uncomfortably

high In October the average peak demand (of 164875 MW) was less than half

the total generation capacity As many as 133 thermal power plants with an

aggregate capacity of 65133 MW have been shut down for want of demand

This has raised concerns of a fresh set of NPAs hitting the already fragile banking

system This fear is a bit over-blown as most of these plants have a power

purchase agreement (PPA) which has a lsquoTake or Payrsquo clause Only those without

a PPA andor a coal linkage will face liquidity issues and possible default of their

debt obligations Nevertheless shutting down so many power plants and

running the rest at half their capacity is not an optimal strategy In fact India is

caught in a piquant situation

The total generation capacity is enough to meet any surge in demand for the

next few years While it has to create capacity ahead of demand (power plants

being long gestation projects) it must also reckon with the fact that as an

emerging economy it is susceptible to vicious economic cycles compared to

more mature economies This invariably results in situations where supply far

exceeds demand as is the case now The need of the hour thus is flexible

generation capacity something India lacks in its overall energy mix Gas-based

power plants offer this flexibility and so do pumped storage hydro power

plants Unlike thermal or nuclear power plants they donrsquot have to be run

continuously and can be operated on demand Economic cycles and

consequent demand volatility apart flexibility in generation has become all the

more important in this era of renewable energy Solar energy is available only

during the day time and wind is seasonal a sustainable grid uses clean energy

when available and switches to conventional sources at other times Indiarsquos

share of renewable energy is 22 per cent and growing The government has set

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

47

itself as aspirational green energy target of 175 GW (achieved 83 GW so far) by

2022 It is high time planners impart significant flexibility to the grid to leverage

clean energy effectively and optimally use the thermal assets Also now that

we are sitting on surplus capacity the situation is conducive to weed out

inefficient generation units especially in the public sector which are decades

old with high variable costs This will make the sector more efficient

Tariff rationalisation

Today if the sector is under stress it is because demand from well paying

consumer category such as industrial users has dropped especially in the States

such as Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Gujarat while non-paying or low paying

domestic consumers have risen This has hurt distribution companiesrsquo cash flow

badly The only solution to this problem is tariff rationalisation

Consumers mdash industrial commercial or retail mdash should pay the right price for

electricity and if any

government wants to offer free or cheaper power to a section of the population

it should use direct benefit transfer (like LPG) to subsidise them Cross-

subsidisation of free or cheap power by charging the industry more will not

work anymore It will leave manufacturing uncompetitive and hurt Indiarsquos lsquoEase

of Doing Businessrsquo ranking To make all this possible and protect the interest of

all stakeholders an independent regulator is essential But State governments

still prefer to appoint lsquoyes menrsquo to this role just to satisfy a constitutional need

more in letter than spirit Warts and all the electricity sector in India is in a

relative better situation It has overcome the capacity problem and is today in

a position to meet every unit of demand Indiarsquos per capita electricity

consumption at 1181 units is far lower than Chinarsquos 4475 units and the

USrsquo12071 units The headroom for growth is immense A concerted effort to

deal with the remaining pain points will ensure that it will be best placed to

power Indiarsquos growth into a developed economy

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

48

Wind energy playersrsquo woes pile up

The dilution of renewable energy purchase norms and introduction of competitive

bids have hit the wind energy sector hard The latest casualty due to the

unfavourable winds faced by the sector is Inox Windrsquos manufacturing facility at

Rohika In a statement to the stock exchanges after news reports of a lockout the

company maintained that the shutdown was declared because of fears that certain

employees under the instigation and influence of external forces could create

disturbance in the Blade Plant But the companyrsquos letter to the Gujarat government

declaring the lock out said the overall wind industry in India is going through ldquoa

very tough phaserdquo The wind energy sector has been worried over lower capacity

utilisation of domestic manufacturing facilities and a dearth of projects being bid

out for setting up generation capacity Some industry representatives point out

that while capacity addition in the solar sector has grown by over 10 times from

2014 levels the growth of wind is hardly 15 times This gloom reflects in the

Centrersquos own long-term renewable purchase obligation (RPO) trajectory for solar

and non-solar sources of renewable energy The RPO is the minimum percentage

of power of the total energy requirement to be procured by a power distribution

company from a renewable energy sources Solar purchase obligation which was

at 275 per cent in 2016-2017 is projected to rise to 1050 per cent in 2021-2022

But wind purchase obligation is set to rise from 875 per cent in 2016-2017 to 1050

per cent by 2021-2022 The switch to the tariff-based competitive bidding system

for wind energy has also stunted the ecosystem for developers and manufacturers

During auctions held in February last year minimum tariff fell by over ₹4 a unit to

₹243 a unit While tariffs have not fallen further the subsequent auctions saw a

cap below ₹3 a unit being fixed for bids ldquoThis substantially curtails the margins of

manufacturers and is extremely detrimental for the domestic industry Unlike solar

wind equipments are largely manufactured in India So it feels that the government

would rather let Chinese manufacturers thrive by promoting solar over windrdquo

another wind sector representative said

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

49

Merkel renews push for India-EU free trade pact

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday there was a need for a fresh

attempt to restart talks on finalising a free trade agreement (FTA) between

India and the European Union Merkel who is in India along with several

cabinet colleagues and a business delegation began talks with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on trade investment regional security and climate change A

free trade pact with India has been a long-pending demand from Germany

Indiarsquos largest trading partner in Europe The pact has been in discussion for

years ldquoWe need a new attempt for an EU-Indian FTA We were already close

oncerdquo Merkel said in New Delhi adding that she held an intensive discussion

about the FTA with Modi

ldquoWith the new EU Commission there will be a new attemptrdquo she said With

more than 1700 German companies operating in India a free trade pact could

help minimise the uncertainty experienced by German investors after an

investment protection agreement between the two countries ended in 2016

While addressing an audience at the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce

Merkel said she had an open discussion with Modi about problems faced by

German companies and difficulties reported by small and medium enterprises

to find way around the ldquobureaucracy labyrinthrdquo In recent months German firms

have raised a few other concerns including slowdown in Indiarsquos auto sector

lack of stable policymaking and ad-hoc decisions which they say have affected

buyer sentiment and created uncertainty among carmakers Merkel said

Germany will spend one billion euros (nearly ₹8000 crore) in the next five years

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

50

on green urban mobility projects cin India over the next five years including

200 million euros to replace diesel buses in Tamil Nadu state ldquoThese diesel

buses are to be replaced by electric buses and anyone who saw the pollution in

Delhi yesterday would find very good arguments for replacing even more of

these busesrdquo Merkel said Fresh funds pledged by Germany come at a time

when pollution made the air so toxic in capital New Delhi that officials were

forced to declare a public health emergency Photos of Merkelrsquos official visit

show the visible effects of smog at the presidential palace - though both Modi

and Merkel ignored the declared public health emergency and did not wear

masks

Project delays Mercom Research revises annual solar

installation forecast down to 73 GW

Solar installations in the country increased by 44 per cent in Q3 2019 reaching

2170 MW (22GW) compared to 1510 MW in Q2 2019 Installations were up

by 36 per cent year-over-year (YoY) compared to 1592 MW in Q3 2018

However solar installations in the first nine months (9M) of 2019 reached 54

gigawatts (GW) a decline of 19 per cent compared to 67 GW of capacity added

in 9M of 2018 according to the newly released Q3 2019 India Solar Market

Update by Mercom India Research In Q3 2019 large-scale installations totalled

1925 MW compared to 1218 MW in Q2 2019 and 1157 MW in Q3 2018 The

large-scale solar project development pipeline for the country has increased to

226 GW About 37 GW of solar have been tendered and were pending to

auction at the end of the quarter Rooftop solar installations declined by just 16

per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2019 a total 245 MW compared to 292

MW installed in Q2 2019 Rooftop solar installations fell by 44 per cent YoY

compared to 435 MW installed in Q3 2018 Raj Prabhu CEO and Co-Founder of

Mercom Capital Group said ldquoSolar installations in Q3 2019 beat the downward

trend seen over the past five quarters however we are revising our forecast

down for 2019 as over 1 GW of projects have been delayed The rooftop market

continues to be weak amid a lack of financing and consistent regulatory issuesrdquo

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

51

Revision in forecast

The report attributes the revision in the solar forecast to the slowdown in

rooftop solar installations partial commissioning of large-scale projects and

over a gigawatt of projects that were scheduled to be commissioned in the third

and fourth quarters getting pushed to 2020 due to legal issues land acquisition

problems execution delays tariff approvals and AP state Issues ndash policy

instability and access to financing Total power capacity additions in 9M 2019

were 13 GW in India from all power generation sources Of this renewable

energy sources accounted for nearly 56 per cent of installations with solar

representing 414 per cent of new capacity and wind with 136 per cent Coal

accounted for almost 441 per cent of new capacity in 9M 2019 According to

the report Indiarsquos cumulative solar installations stood at 338 GW by the end

of Q3 2019 However rooftop installations still only made up 12 per cent of the

total Because of the liquidity crunch and worsening economic conditions

commercial and industrial companies are struggling to finance rooftop projects

The country has crossed 4 GW of cumulative rooftop solar installations and

achieved only 10 per cent of the 2022 target of 40 GW Mercom has revised its

solar forecast down to 73 GW for capacity additions in Calender Year 2019

from the previous estimate of 8 GW Mercom is estimating about 10 GW of

installations in Calender Year 2020 assuming stable market conditions Tamil

Nadu was the top state for large-scale solar installations in Q3 2019 followed

by Rajasthan and Karnataka Large-scale solar installations were mostly

concentrated in five states which made up 96 per cent of installed capacity in

the quarter Solar accounted for 414 per cent of the new power capacity

additions in 9M 2019 Renewable energy capacity additions continue to increase

at a significant pace in India accounting for approximately 357 per cent of

Indiarsquos cumulative power capacity mix Solar electricity generation crossed 10

billion units (BUs) in Q3 2019 In the same quarter the investments in the Indian

solar sector were 11 per cent lower compared to investments made in Q2 2019

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

52

How to make coal mining sustainable

Notwithstanding the optimism over

renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly coal

will continue to dominate Indiarsquos electricity

generation for at least a couple of decades

more Given this scenario how can we ensure

that the coal sector incorporates sustainability

mdash with regard to social aspects economic

dependencies and ecological sensitivities mdash

into the mining process right from the planning stage

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

53

Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the countryrsquos electricity generation

in FY 2018-19 In addition to electricity generation it is also a vital input for

other core industries like steel and cement which play a critical role in the

countryrsquos development Despite being the worldrsquos second-largest coal

producer India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than

₹17 trillion during FY19 (See Chart)

While mining operations have positive economic impacts on the local area in

terms of infrastructure development provision of employment and business

opportunities adverse effects of coal mining on the ecology of the local area

are also well known The changes in the ecosystem of the region are particularly

significant in the case of open-cast coal mines which account for approximately

94 per cent of the coal produced in India All mining operations entail a

temporary diversion of land for mining and allied activities after which the

mine owner must rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use of the local

communities Therefore the Ministry of Coal (MoC) mandates every owner of

an open-cast coal mine to deposit ₹600000 per hectare of the total project

area in annual installments (to be escalated using the wholesale price index

from August 2009 onwards) into an escrow account managed by the Coal

Controller

Final mine closure- The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 permits the

government to auction coal mines to the private sector for captive and

commercial purposes The government has auctioned 24 coal blocks to private

companies till March 2019 and will be further auctioning coal blocks for

commercial mining by both Indian and foreign companies Government-

controlled public sector companies may not have any difficulty in meeting their

financial obligations related to the final mine closure However there is a risk

that some coal mines operated by private companies or State government

entities who outsource their coal mines to private entities may be closed

without having the necessary funds to complete the mine closure activities as

per the approved Mining Plans The ability to successfully rehabilitate mined-

out areas is fundamental to the coal industryrsquos social license to operate The

practice of releasing up to 80 per cent of the escrow amount after every five

years based on progress in indicative activities may not ensure the availability

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

54

of adequate funds for final mine closure Therefore India needs more effective

and efficient regulatory governance to streamline approvals while ensuring the

adoption of advanced technologies for mining environment protection and

reclamation

Unified authority- In 2014 a high-level committee appointed by the Central

government recommended the creation of a National Environment

Management Authority including inter alia a special cell with appropriate

expertise to deal with coal mining Coal is a central subject and government

companies produce more than 94 per cent of the coal in India Therefore the

government must set up an independent multi-disciplinary unified authority

on the pattern of the Director-General of Mines Safety which is staffed with

varied scientific and technological experts required to regulate all matters

related to health and safety in the mineral industry Such an authority must

have in-house professional expertise in the ecological environmental

geological mine planning hydro-geology biodiversity and social aspects of

coal mine closure to consider all these facets in an integrated manner before

granting all key statutory approvals for coal mines Once this authority is

functional the role of the MoC in approving Mining Plans the powers of the

Coal Controller to issue Mine OpeningClosing Permissions and manage escrow

accounts related to mine closure and the role of the Ministry of Environment

Forest and Climate Change (MoEFampCC) in issuing environmentforestwildlife

clearances for coal mines must be handed over to this authority These steps

are critical to remove the overlapping jurisdictions of multiple bodies which

govern matters related to forest environment and mine openingclosure in

India While this authority must also be empowered to enforce compliance of

these clearances by all coal mines in India throughout operation right up to final

closure it need not be involved in the allotment of coal blocks or in regulating

the coal market Any appeal against an orderdecision made by this authority

may lie only with the National Green Tribunal

Official Code- To achieve the above goals the Parliament must enact a

ldquoSustainable Coal Mining Coderdquo to consolidate all statutory provisions

governing openingclosing and environmentforest matters related to coal

mines This Code must empower the unified authority to ensure efficient and

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

55

effective environmental governance of coal mines in the manner explained

above Since 1977 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

(OSMRE) in the US has ensured that mine owners operate their open-cast coal

mines in a manner that protects the local communities and the environment

during mining as well as rehabilitate the mined-out land for beneficial use post-

mining Therefore the OSMRE may also be a role model for the proposed

unified authority A dynamic equilibrium between environment conservation

and development for inter-generation equity is the need of the hour in India

An empowered unified authority for coal mining can ensure effective

compliance with all statutes related to mining environment forest and mine

openingclosure in coal mines by using remote sensing and GIS-based tools for

remote surveillance in conjunction with quarterly inspections of each coal

mine This authority will also facilitate job creation and contribute to a

reduction in coal imports by ensuring ldquoease of doing businessrdquo without

compromising on forest and environment compliances Ultimately this will

contribute to the realisation of Indiarsquos Sustainable Development Goals and

facilitate both energy security and sustainability for India during the ongoing

energy transition

Waste to energy to waste

Shakuntala quickly runs towards Tajpur Pahari when she sees a truck arriving

with fresh ash She lives a few hundred metres away from the spot where

tonnes of ash generated by the Okhla waste-to-energy plant is sent mdash and

callously dumped in the open The place where the ash the remnants of the

incineration of garbage has been dumped and tamped down over time looks

like any other ground But a closer look at the children playing cricket there

reveals the darker under layer is not soil at all but packed ash Shakuntala

approaches the newly dumped piles and starts combing for metal pieces using

her hands to locate any bolts nuts or nails perhaps a wire left unburnt in the

incinerator These can fetch her Rs 10 a kilo in the scrap market When she finds

unconsumed wood she gladly takes it home for use in the kitchen Isnrsquot she

aware of the toxicity of the waste ash that she is raking with her hands ldquoI

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

56

cannot help itrdquo shrugs the 61-year-old ldquoThe quality of the metal might be

deteriorated by the burning but it still fetches me money and I can use any

wood when cookingrdquo At the site TOI saw plastic rags and metal pieces in the

ash dump Obviously people arenrsquot wrong in believing that there is improper

combustion taking place at the plant ldquoBoth segregation and incineration are

myths and combustion is incompleterdquo alleged Bhavreen Kandhari an

environmental activist On Friday there were several such scavengers in the

area An aghast Chitra Mukherjee head of programmes and operations at

waste management NGO Chintan said not only shouldnrsquot waste ash be dumped

in the open but people mustnrsquot be allowed to come in contact with it ldquoThe ash

that is created by burning waste is extremely toxicrdquo she said ldquoThis is the prime

reason why we are against waste-to-energy plants Ash that is dumped in the

open is more dangerous than waste dumped in the open Fly ash can be easily

carried by the wind and contaminates not only water bodies but groundwater

toordquo Kandhari explained that the ash contains heavy metal compounds and

those coming in contact with the unburnt metal pieces were slowly poisoning

themselves She added that the ash when disposed of in this manner leached

into and contaminated the groundwater Bimla another scavenger of Mohan

Baba Nagar the settlement opposite the Okhla plant disclosed that the water

quality in the locality had already been compromised Black groundwater she

said was ldquoquite normal for the areardquo She added ominously ldquoPeople here

arenrsquot generally bothered by the ash dumpingrdquo TOIrsquos repeated attempts to get

a comment from officials of the Okhla waste-to-energy plant elicited no

response The South Delhi Municipal Corporation owner of the land on which

the plant is located claimed due process was being followed and the ash was

sent to the Okhla landfill where it lsquohelpsrsquo in mitigating fire incidents by

lessening the volume of methane generated and to Tajpur Pahari Civic

officials however admitted the ash at Tajpur Pahari wasnrsquot specially treated

ldquoThe ash is offloaded there and the mounds gradually gets flattened over time

There is no need to sprinkle them with waterrdquo said an SDMC official Mukherjee

was certain that instead of sending municipal waste to an incineration power

plant segregating waste at source would prevent new problems including the

toxicity generated by burning waste

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

57

India Europe 29 nations to cooperate in AI green energy IT

pharma smart-cities

ldquoIndia and the Europe 29 group of Central Northern and East European

countries hold growth potential in areas such as artificial intelligence new age

technologies new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of

growth in a slowing worldrdquo Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said

ldquoThe two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities

clean and renewable energy start ups IT and ITES and can develop a strong

economic relationship with each otherrdquo Goyal said at the India-Europe 29

Business Forum organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body

CII on Wednesday The Europe 29 region comprises Albania Liechtenstein

Austria Lithuania Bosnia amp Herzegovina Macedonia Bulgaria Malta Croatia

Moldova Cyprus Montenegro Czech Republic Norway Denmark Poland

Estonia Romania Finland Serbia Greece Slovak Republic Hungary Slovenia

Icelland Sweden Latvia Switzerland and Turkey Bulgarian Deputy Prime

Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Mariyana Nikolova pointed out

that her country had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe at 10 per

cent and a predictable and stable policy framework ldquoI invite Indian industry to

come and invest in my country The two countries can work together in a

number of areas including pharmaceuticals chemicals machinery and agri and

food processing sectorsrdquo she said while giving a presentation on the

opportunities in Bulgaria at the Forum Nikolova highlighted Bulgariarsquos

strengths in both hardware and software and felt that Indian companies could

be an ideal partner Slovak Republicrsquos First Deputy Minister of Economy Vojtecj

Ferencz said that companies like TCS and Jaguar Land Rover had invested in the

country but there was much more scope to step up Indian investment ldquoSectors

for investments include automobiles and auto components electronics and

electrical equip

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

58

Scientists develop cheaper catalysts to cut fuel cell cost

The team including an IIT Madras scientist shows zirconium-based substance

can replace expensive platinum in fuel cells

The quest for developing cheaper but better fuel cells has just got a boost A

research team that includes a scientist from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a cost-effective substitute to platinum catalyst which

is essential for fuel cells to function but accounts for almost a-fifth of their cost

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials a team of

materials scientists from India China and the UK claimed that catalysts made

of zirconium nitride nanoparticles that they developed could be a superior

alternative to platinum catalysts for use in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Apart from Tiju Thomas of IIT Madras Minghui Yang of Ningbo Institute of

Materials Technology in Ningbo in China and John Paul Attfield of the University

of Edinburgh are the main authors of the study which showed that zirconium

nitride nanoparticles can be a highly attractive alternative to platinum

ldquoPlatinum is the gold standard as far as fuel cell catalysis is concernedrdquo said

Thomas an associate professor at the Department of Metallurgical and

Materials Engineering at IIT Madras If what they discovered in the lab can be

translated into real applications there could be more cost-effective and

efficient fuel cells in the market in near future After all platinum is a scarcely

available metal on earth and costs around ₹2750 per gram Zirconium on the

other hand is abundantly available and is at least 700 times cheaper than

platinum Platinum catalysts are said to account for nearly 20 per cent of the

cost of a fuel cell

ldquoWe are willing to work with industry to develop innovative products based on

our findingsrdquo Thomas told BusinessLine

What is a fuel cell

Fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy stored in molecular bonds of

chemicals into electrical energy In more commonly-used hydrogen fuel cells

platinum catalyst is used for splitting hydrogen atoms into positively-charged

hydrogen ions and electrons While electrons flow out to produce direct current

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

59

electricity positive hydrogen ions combine with oxygen supplied through

another electrode to produce water paving the way for the production of the

one of the cleanest forms of energy ldquoIn not so distant future we are to witness

a radical reorganisation of the energy landscape -- from one that is based on

carbon to that relies on renewablesrdquo said Thomas Fuel cells and metal-air

batteries play an instrumental role in this transition and they may even become

more common-place in one-to-three decades he said They may find increasing

applications in automotive industry and in off-grid power generation among

others One of the major limiting factors that prevent them from being

widespread is the prohibitive cost of platinum Low-cost materials that have a

high catalytic activity and durability have remained elusive so industrial use is

largely limited to platinum-based catalysts for fuel cells for example in

automotive applications the scientists said The research team stumbled upon

zirconium nitride almost serendipitously About a decade and a half ago while

working in a Cornell University lab Thomas and Yang realised the promise that

nitrides can offer as catalysts and continued to work on them even after they

moved back to their respective countries Thomas who has been on a visiting

position offered by Chinese Academy of Sciences for last 9 years has been

working closely with Yangrsquos team In 2018 for the first time they quite

accidentally discovered that zirconium catalysts can actually surpass that of

platinum said Thomas whose lab works on nitride and oxynitride catalysts In

the present study the scientists found that zirconium nitride catalysts can not

only perform all functions of platinum-based ones but also surpass many of

them Zirconium nitride catalysts for instance have better stability than their

platinum counterparts Platinum catalysts used in fuel cells are seen to degrade

over a period of time Zirconium nitride catalysts on the other hand were

found to decay at a much slower rate

PSU oil biggies to stay out of BPCL divestment

State-run entities will stay off when the government puts Indiarsquos second-largest

public sector oil refiner and fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) on the block

a move that is expected to make the offering attractive for foreign majors

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

60

ldquoSince 2014 we have a clear vision that the government has no business to be

in business Nitty gritty and details of the disinvestment process will have to

be worked out but when I say the government has no business to be in business

it is indicative of possible future course of actionrdquo oil and steel minister

Dharmendra Pradhan said on the sidelines of an industry function on Thursday

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal to privatise BPCL by selling the

governmentrsquos 533 stake with management control to a strategic investor

This will be the first privatisation of an oil company by the Narendra Modi

government BPCL will give the buyer access to 14 of Indiarsquos oil refining

capacity and about a fourth of the fuel marketing infrastructure in the worldrsquos

fastest-growing energy market On Thursday the decision to sell BPCL drew flak

from Congress member and former oil minister Veerappa Moily who described

it as ldquoan attempt to sell away an important soul of the public sectorrdquo There is

no reason to sell a profitable company managed by excellent professionals he

said in a statement demanding a rollback Pradhan pointed out that private

competition in telecom and aviation sectors led to customers benefiting from

price cuts efficiency and better service

This IIT-Madras team has a way to kill the hum in gas engines

Undesirable oscillations experienced in certain type of common gas turbines

used by power plants and aircraft engines have always worried their

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

61

developers Globally the gas turbine industry loses as much as $1 billion

annually due to downtime for turbine inspection and replacement of damaged

parts due to such thermo-acoustic oscillations Some of the early-generation

rockets used for satellite launches or space travel exploded in space because of

such ruinously large sound oscillations-triggered thermal fluctuations in

combustors Now a team of researchers led by RI Sujith Professor in the

Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Madras may have found a way to lsquoquenchrsquo such humming ldquoInside a gas turbine

using can combustors the flickering flames produce a continuous sound which

travel as sound waves to the boundary of the container and reflect back to

amplify the flames further This continuous cross-talk between the sound

waves and the flames over a period of time becomes unmanageable leading to

temporary shutdown of the turbine This elusive hum has been troubling the

gas turbine industry for quite some timerdquo said Sujith Now the IIT research

team which includes Sujithrsquos research students has proposed a unique method

to quench this thermo-acoustic oscillation In a recent paper published in the

journal Chaos the researchers showed that when two combustors exhibiting

thermo-acoustic oscillations are coupled through a single connecting tube of

appropriate dimensions (that is length and diameter) the cross-talking of

these oscillations leads to the simultaneous quenching of their amplitudes

through a phenomenon known as amplitude death The absence of large

amplitude oscillations during amplitude death is a desirable operating

condition for the combustor providing an environment for healthy operation

the scientists argued ldquoImagine two suspended bridges side by side If vehicles

are passing on these bridges continuously the bridges may flutter leading to a

bumpy motion experienced by all passing vehicles But these bridges can be

connected in such a manner that they cancel each otherrsquos oscillationrdquo said

Sujith ldquoAlthough the concept of amplitude death has been known it has mostly

been shown in theoretical studies and also in simple experiments involving

oscillators such as metronomes We are using this concept for the first time in

a practical systemrdquo the IIT- Madras Professor told BusinessLine

Cost-effective solution- The study provides a simple and cost-effective solution

for quenching thermoacoustic oscillations developed in multiple combustion

systems where the knowledge for the control of such oscillations remains

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges

62

limited Currently mitigation of thermo-acoustic instability is achieved through

active and passive control strategies Active control involves the alteration of

the system condition externally causing an interruption in the coupling

between the acoustic and the heat release rate fluctuations leading to

quenching of thermo-acoustic oscillations On the other hand passive controls

involve modification of system geometry such that it increases acoustic

damping or modifies the instability frequency in the system Recent studies also

focus on developing technologies to alert and thereby avoid the onset of

instability The insights obtained from the experiments conducted on

laboratory systems known as the horizontal Rijke tubes by the IIT scientists

can be potentially used for the development of several reliable control

strategies for practical combustion systems (especially can or can-annular

combustors in a gas turbine engine) The findings are pertinent and

complementary to numerous real-world applications beyond combustion

systems such as a variety of oscillatory instabilities experienced by bridges