The Ministry of Power issued an advisory to power plants to auction fly ash through a transparent bidding process.
It was directed that power plants will invariably auction the fly ash through a transparent bidding process and an advisory has been issued by the Ministry on 22 September 2021 for this purpose. This will reduce the tariff of electricity and burden on the consumers.
The advisory stated that the power plants will provide the fly ash to end-users through a transparent bidding process only.
If after bidding/auction some quantity of fly ash remains unutilised, then only, as one of the options, it could be considered to be given free of cost on first-come-first-served basis if the user agency is willing to bear the transportation cost.
If ash remains unutilised even after the steps taken as above, the thermal power plant (TPP) will bear the cost of transportation of the fly ash to be provided free to eligible projects.
The end-users will be obligated to source the fly ash from the nearest TPPs to reduce the cost of transportation. If the nearest TPP refuses to do so, the end-user project will approach the power ministry for appropriate directions.
The transportation cost wherever required to be borne by the power plants, as per provisions of a notification by the environment ministry, will be discovered on competitive bidding basis only.
TPPs will prepare a panel of transportation agencies every year, based on competitive bidding for transportation in slabs of 50 kms which may be used for the period.
TPPs will call for bids well in advance so that a transportation panel is in place as soon as the previous panel expires. There should not be a gap between the expiry of one panel and the finalisation of the fresh panel.
The fly ash will be offered to the end-users on the competing demand basis, that is the end-users who offer the highest price and seek minimum support for transportation cost will be offered the fly ash on priority.
The power plants may offer fly ash subject to their technical restrictions such as all precautions required for dyke stability and safety, etc. The plants having lower ash utilisations will make all-out efforts to increase the utilisation, as per the advisory.
