Tarapur unit faces closure

MUMBAI: The celebrations are not yet over but the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) already has trouble on its hands from the most unexpected of quarters���the state pollution control board.
A week after the NPC successfully commissioned the 540 mw atomic power station at Tarapur in Thane district, it has been served a show-cause notice by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) for not having the necessary approvals.
MPCB member secretary Dilip Boralkar, who has in the recent past taken on a range of offenders from tabela owners to hoteliers in Matheran, said that no operation, public or private, involving the discharge of sewage or effluent can be set up without the written permission of the board.
He has in effect thrown the rule book (Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974) at the NPC. "We have given them 15 days to reply to our notice. If they fail to give a satisfactory reply, we will not hesitate to issue a closure notice," said Boralkar.
NPC chairman-cum-managing director S K Jain was not available for comment. The MPCB���s action is landmark in that this is the first time the board has directly targeted a government undertaking, and such a high-profile one at that.
The new Tarapur plant will benefit a swathe of states, by providing cheap electricity to Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Daman and Diu. The MPCB has the power to issue directions of closure and stoppage of electricity and water to offending parties.
"Under the Water Act, the punishment is very stringent���two to six years' imprisonment with a fine," Boralkar said. Another wrangle the two organisations are locked in is the issue of water cess. The board claims the NPC owes it arrears of Rs 32.66 crore as cess on the water used by the Tarapur plant right from 1983.
"For the recovery of these arrears too we have given them 15 days' time. If they fail to make the payment we will refuse consent to other plants," the secretary said.
But the NPC has contested the cess claim before the Cess Appellate Committee, submitting that it is not liable to pay cess at least up to 2003, since it did not come under the purview of the Water Act.