NTPC Ltd., a central PSU under Ministry of Power and country’s largest power generation     company, has developed an infrastructure at Rihand project in Uttar Pradesh to transport fly ash in bulk to cement plants, located at distance, at a cheaper cost. The development is in line with NTPC's commitment towards 100 percent utilization of fly ash from power plants.

As per a statement issued by NTPC Ltd., the first rake of 59 BOXN type of railway wagons carrying 3450 Metric Tonne (MT) of fly ash was flagged off from NTPC’s Rihand Super Thermal Power station by Shri Balaji Iyengar, Executive Director (NTPC Rihand) for ACC Cement Manufacturing Plant, Tikaria, U.P. located at a distance of 458 kms , in presence of other senior officials of NTPC Rihand.

Shri Lalit Trivedi, General Manager, East Central Railway and Shri Suresh Rathi, Head Supply Chain, ACC along with his team joined the occasion through video conferencing. To transfer the first tranche, officials from NTPC Rihand approached East Central Railway along with leading cement producers to commence the supply of fly ash in BOXN wagons covered with tarpaulin. The innovation will pave the way for efficient and safer transportation of fly ash from the power plants to cement production units located at a distance in larger quantity.

The effort marks the beginning of a new era for the transportation of fly ash from a remote location to a consumption centre, enabling power plants for upgrading the utilization of fly ash with the availability of additional material loading avenues for Indian Railways and accessibility of fly ash to the cement plants in an environment-friendly manner at a competitive price. During the financial year 2019-20, almost 44.33 million tonnes of fly ash was utilized for various productive purposes, being 73.31% of the ash generated.

Moreover, company is looking at new avenues of fly ash management like fly ash based geo-polymer road, use of bottom ash as replacement of fine aggregate (sand) in cement concrete. Also, NTPC has plans to set up fly ash classifier unit for export purposes.

With a total installed capacity of 62.9 GW, NTPC Group has 70 Power stations comprising of 24 Coal, 7 combined cycle Gas/Liquid Fuel, 1 Hydro, 13 Renewables along with 25 Subsidiary & JV Power Stations. The group has over 20 GW of capacity under construction, including 5 GW of renewable energy projects.

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RCJ/M