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Vidarbha’s Coal Plants Exempted from Key Pollution Norms in 2025 Shift

Vidarbha’s Coal Plants Exempted from Key Pollution Norms in 2025 Shift
Vidarbha’s Coal Plants Exempted from Key Pollution Norms

Thick plumes of smoke continue to billow from the tall stacks of Vidarbha’s coal-fired power plants, but now with a government seal of approval. In a controversial policy shift announced in July 2025, India’s Environment Ministry has rolled back key clean-air mandates for coal power stations.


The move exempts nearly 78% of the country’s coal plants from installing flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) units, which are critical equipment to curb toxic sulphur dioxide emissions.


In Vidarbha, Maharashtra’s central region known as a thermal power hub, this decision has raised immediate concern. Home to some of India’s largest coal power stations, Vidarbha now faces the prospect of unabated pollution even as officials defend the relaxation in the name of practical constraints and energy needs.


Most Coal Plants Get a Free Pass on Emissions Controls


The new notification from the Union Environment Ministry effectively rewrites the rulebook on pollution control for coal-fired power stations. Introduced quietly via gazette on July 11, 2025, it extends deadlines and grants outright exemptions for installing FGD systems that strip sulphur dioxide (SO₂) from plant exhaust.


Under the original 2015 mandate, all coal plants were to retrofit FGDs in phases by 2022-2025 to meet stricter emission norms. Now, in a dramatic policy reversal, only a small fraction of plants will be required to comply on schedule.


According to the ministry’s order, 79% of India’s coal-fired plants, specifically those located more than 10 km away from any densely populated or pollution-hit city, are fully exempt from the FGD requirement.

Another 11% of plants situated near smaller “non-attainment” or polluted cities have been spared blanket deadlines; their compliance will be decided case by case. The remaining 10% of plants, mainly the ones closest to major metros (including Delhi and other cities with over one million people), must still install FGDs, but even their deadline has been pushed back to December 2027, a three-year extension from the previous 2024 target.


Government officials cite multiple reasons for diluting the coal emission norms. The Environment Ministry said it received numerous representations from the power industry seeking relief, pointing to challenges like a “limited availability of technology providers”, the high costs and feasibility issues of retrofits, supply-chain disruptions during Covid, and potential increases in electricity tariffs for consumers.


An analysis by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) also flagged that operating FGDs would marginally raise carbon dioxide output and water usage, given the energy and limestone needed to run these pollution-control units. Based on these findings and explicit backing from the Ministry of Power, the Environment Ministry concluded that requiring FGDs at all plants might not be “techno-economically” prudent. In short, the government’s stance is that forcing costly upgrades on old coal stations could strain power supplies and finances for minimal environmental benefit outside the most critical areas.


This rationale has been met with sharp criticism from environmental experts, who note that sulphur scrubbing technology is essential for public health.

The rollback effectively nullifies a decade of incremental progress on clean-air regulations. “We are facing an air pollution emergency, and yet it is far from clear that power plants will meet even the extended deadlines,” a Greenpeace campaigner had warned when deadlines were previously pushed.


Now, with the requirements largely waived, activists say authorities have given coal plants a free pass to continue polluting. Sulphur dioxide is a major toxic pollutant: once released, it converts into fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the atmosphere, which penetrates deep into the lungs and causes respiratory and cardiac diseases.


By the government’s own estimate, millions of Indians suffer serious illness or premature death each year due to air pollution, a burden to which coal plant emissions contribute significantly. The latest decision has therefore stirred debate about balancing short-term energy needs with long-term public health.


Vidarbha’s Power Stations Largely Off the Hook


Vidarbha hosts a cluster of large coal-fired power stations that together generate a substantial share of the state’s electricity. This includes both state-run plants under Mahagenco and central or privately owned projects.


Under the new categorisation, the majority of Vidarbha’s coal plants fall in the fully exempted bracket, meaning they no longer have to install FGDs at all. These plants are in relatively remote or less urbanised locations, the criterion that now shields them from the pollution upgrade mandate.

A roll call of Vidarbha’s thermal stations underscores how sweeping the exemption is. Take the giant Adani Power plant at Tiroda in Gondia district (3,300 MW), one of India’s biggest, or the NTPC Mauda plant (2,320 MW) outside Nagpur.


Both lie well beyond 10 km from any major city, qualifying them as Category C plants that meet the tall-stack height norms and are now excused from SO₂ curbs. Similarly, Mahagenco’s Koradi (2,400 MW) and Khaparkheda (1,340 MW) power stations near Nagpur are outside the city limits (over 10 km away from Nagpur’s dense population) and thus escape the FGD requirement.


The privately-run RattanIndia Amravati thermal station (1,350 MW), located about 13–15 km from Amravati city, is another Vidarbha plant benefiting from the dilution. It faces no immediate pressure to reduce its sulphur emissions.


Even smaller units like the 600 MW plant at Butibori in Nagpur district and a 540 MW plant at Warora, Chandrapur district, are off the hook due to their distance from big urban centres. In sum, at least seven to eight major coal-fired power plants in Vidarbha now have zero obligation to install pollution-control gear under the revised policy.


This is roughly in line with the national trend, as about four-fifths of India’s coal capacity has been deemed exempt.


There are a few notable exceptions in the region. The biggest is the Chandrapur Super Thermal Power Station (CSTPS), a 3,340 MW behemoth that is Maharashtra’s largest coal plant. Chandrapur city and its surroundings are classified as a “critically polluted” industrial area by CPCB, due in large part to emissions from the power plant and nearby coal mines.


Under the new rules, Chandrapur’s plant falls into Category B, it did not get an outright exemption. However, it has won a reprieve of its own. Instead of the hard deadline of 2025 to add FGDs, the plant will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

In practice, this could mean further extensions or conditional waivers, depending on whether authorities accept arguments about the plant’s remaining life or other factors. Another semi-exception is Mahagenco’s Paras Thermal Power Station (250 MW x 2) in Akola district. Paras lies just 5 km from Akola city, which is officially a “non-attainment” city with polluted air.


That proximity put Paras in Category B as well – theoretically subject to stricter oversight. Yet like Chandrapur, the Paras plant’s compliance will now be determined through a later review rather than enforced immediately.


Local environmentalists worry this “case-by-case” process is opaque and may simply become a backdoor for permanent waivers. After all, the Ministry’s notification was clear that only 10% of plants near the biggest metros absolutely must install FGDs by 2027. Neither Chandrapur nor Akola falls in that top-tier category. The upshot is that virtually all of Vidarbha’s coal power stations have little to no FGD obligation in the foreseeable future.


For a region often dubbed the power capital of Maharashtra, that spells an ongoing license to pollute, even as residents have long complained of the environmental toll.


Power industry officials in Maharashtra have welcomed the relaxed norms, arguing that forcing expensive retrofits on plants in distant locations made little sense. They point out that some older units might be retired in a few years anyway, and question the cost-benefit of installing FGDs on stations that don’t directly foul the air of big cities. “Many places in the state, like Vidarbha, are already water-stressed and might suffer more as the technology requires a large quantity of water,” a senior Maharashtra Pollution Control Board official had cautioned during earlier deliberations on FGDs.


Handling the gypsum by-product from desulphurisation was another concern. Such arguments likely informed the latest decision. Yet critics note that Vidarbha’s plants were major polluters for a reason, their emissions travel far beyond the plant fence-line and have been affecting smaller cities and rural areas that often get overlooked in policy decisions.


Pollution Fallout for Vidarbha’s Cities and Villages

Pollution Fallout for Vidarbha’s Cities and Villages due to coal pollution norms exemption
Pollution Fallout for Vidarbha’s Cities and Villages

By loosening pollution controls, the new policy could have serious consequences for air quality in Vidarbha. This region already hosts some of the worst sulphur dioxide emission hotspots in the country.


Studies by Greenpeace identified Chandrapur and Koradi as two of India’s top SO₂ hotspots, thanks to the concentration of coal burning here.


Residents of Vidarbha’s industrial belts are no strangers to the health burdens that come with living in the shadow of coal smokestacks. In Chandrapur, where an orange haze often hangs in the air, doctors have reported high rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

The city’s air quality is routinely poor enough that Chandrapur was listed among India’s official non-attainment (polluted) cities targeted for clean-up. Nagpur, the largest city in Vidarbha, also grapples with periodic smog, and studies have traced some of its pollution to emissions blown in from Koradi and Khaparkheda power plants north of the city.


An epidemiological study by a research group (CREA, 2020) even estimated that emissions from Chandrapur and Koradi plants contribute to elevated risks of lung cancer, stroke and heart disease in populations as far as 100 km away. Now, with FGD retrofits effectively shelved, the SO₂ emissions from these plants will remain unabated, likely adding to the region’s particulate pollution load.


Ground reports from villages around the Koradi and Khaparkheda stations underscore the stakes. Thick fly ash and noxious fumes from the power plant chimneys have long blanketed nearby communities. “Everyone has some disease or the other,” one resident of Suradevi village (near Koradi) told investigators in a 2021 health survey. Villagers in five different settlements recounted chronic breathing troubles, skin rashes, and even cases of kidney stones that they attributed to contaminated air and water. Scientific tests have validated some of these concerns: water samples around ash ponds in Nagpur district showed high concentrations of mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals linked to coal ash leaching. While fly ash pollution stems from particulate matter that is supposed to be captured by other equipment (electrostatic precipitators), not FGDs, the broader picture is one of communities already under environmental distress from coal power operations.


Sulphur dioxide, when emitted in large volumes, poses additional threats. It can cause acid rain, harming crops and soil, and irritate the respiratory system even at some distance from the source. Maharashtra’s own environment department once warned that regions like Chandrapur are vulnerable to acidification of lakes and farmland due to high SO₂ outputs.



The cities of Vidarbha stand to gain from cleaner power plant emissions, but the new exemptions may delay any relief. For example, Nagpur’s air quality could have improved if the power plants in its vicinity installed FGDs to cut sulphur output, especially during winter months when pollution spikes. Likewise, Chandrapur city’s chronic smog problem is directly tied to plant emissions, and its residents had been hoping the 2025 deadline for FGD upgrades would bring fresher air.


Those hopes have dimmed. “The government’s rollback is devastating for us,” says a Chandrapur-based environmental activist. “We’ve been campaigning for years to get these plants to reduce emissions. Instead, they’ve been let off the hook.” There is also a sense of frustration among local officials tasked with air quality management.


An official in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s environment department, speaking on condition of anonymity, shared concern that state authorities will now have fewer tools to pressure industrial polluters outside big cities. “Honestly, this makes our job harder. If the mandate isn’t coming from the top, compliance becomes voluntary,” he said, adding that progress under the National Clean Air Programme could stall in Vidarbha.


Government representatives, for their part, maintain that the new policy won’t significantly deteriorate air quality in regions like Vidarbha. They highlight that many exempted power stations have tall exhaust stacks designed to disperse emissions over a wider area, theoretically reducing the concentration of pollutants at ground level.

Ministry officials also point out that new plants built from 2017 onward already use cleaner technology or were required to have FGDs in their initial design, though in Vidarbha, most large stations predate 2017. Additionally, they argue that focusing pollution controls on plants near densely populated areas will yield the most health benefit per rupee spent. “Rural areas with low population density don’t experience the same health impact for the same emissions,” one official claimed.


This reasoning offers little comfort to those living next door to an “exempt” coal plant. For example, people in villages around the 30-year-old Paras plant fear that a case-by-case delay could turn into indefinite deferral, leaving them breathing sulphurous fumes for many more years.


Weighing Development Against Clean Air


Vidarbha’s predicament spotlights the broader tension in India’s energy policy between development imperatives and environmental health. The region is often called the “powerhouse of Maharashtra.” Its coal plants keep the lights on in Mumbai, Pune, and other distant cities. This has come at a local cost: degraded air quality, polluted rivers, and damaged crops in the shadows of the smokestacks. Supporters of the Environment Ministry’s exemption policy argue that such costs are an unfortunate reality of maintaining affordable electricity and avoiding power shortages.


They note that Vidarbha’s economy also depends on these power stations for jobs and revenue, suggesting that expensive retrofits could force plant shutdowns or higher electricity tariffs statewide. In their view, the decision to exempt 78% of coal plants from anti-pollution upgrades is a pragmatic step to ensure energy security and prevent a spike in power costs, especially at a time when inflation is a concern.

Yet for many residents and independent observers, the latest rollback feels like a step backwards in the fight for cleaner air. Maharashtra had been one of the first states to push its plants to begin FGD installation after 2015. In fact, by 2019 the state pollution board had taken bank guarantees from power companies and initiated tendering for FGDs at several units. That momentum has now effectively stalled. Critics say the central government’s move caters to the coal power lobby at the expense of public health.


They also warn of a regulatory precedent: if large polluters in relatively rural regions are exempt today, enforcement might weaken even in urban-adjacent plants tomorrow. “The exemptions could easily expand. Today it’s 78%, tomorrow it could be 100% if we aren’t vigilant,” says an air quality researcher with a Pune-based think tank, calling for continued legal and civic pressure to hold power companies accountable.


As things stand, Vidarbha’s towns and villages will continue to live under the plume of coal combustion with few additional safeguards.


For the farmers in Chandrapur who have seen their cotton crops wither under layers of soot, or the children in Koradi’s schools coughing through gym class, the promised relief of cleaner emissions has been postponed indefinitely. The Environment Ministry insists the “precautionary principle” will still apply to protect densely populated areas, and that new technology or alternative fuels might eventually mitigate emissions in places like Vidarbha.


In the meantime, though, the region remains a frontline sacrifice zone in India’s energy landscape. Vidarbha’s experience will be a test of whether loosening environmental norms truly balances growth and well-being, or simply shifts the burden of pollution onto those with the least power to demand change.


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