Power plants can give fly ash only via auction

“Ash is emerging as a valuable commodity and so giving it free, and also meeting the transportation costs will lead to malpractices. Therefore, providing such a valuable commodity through a bidding process would help in providing cheaper power to the consumers, ” the advisory to all the state energy secretaries said.

The advisory stated that power plants shall provide the fly ash to end-users through a transparent bidding process only. If after bidding/auction some quantity of fly ash still remains unutilised, then only, as one of the options, it could be considered to be given free of cost on a first-come-first-served basis if the user agency is willing to bear the transportation cost, it stated.

If ash remains unutilised even after the steps taken, the TPP shall bear the cost of transportation of fly ash to be provided free to eligible projects. The end-user shall 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 shall approach the power ministry for appropriate directions, it added.