Ramagundam: The residents of Kundanpally are again raising their voice against the ashes spread in their village. The ash pond of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is located next to Kundanpally of Ramagundam mandal.
Whenever there is strong wind, especially during the summer season, the ash spreads to the surrounding areas and covers Kundanpally, and hence, the residents of the village complain about air pollution as well as groundwater. As a result, they are exposed to various health issues like skin allergies, breathing, eye and kidney problems.
Locals have been raising the issue since the inception of NTPC more than four decades ago. A large amount of ash is produced when coal is burned to generate thermal power. NTPC stores ash mixed with water in an ash pond spread over 1,200 acres apart from Kundanpally near Ramagundam railway station.
Hyderabad News
The NTPC management has since adopted the village and provided various facilities. Apart from supplying drinking water by laying a pipeline in the village, medical camps are also organized every month for the treatment of the local people.
As the problem does not seem to end, the villagers recently started an agitation demanding the NTPC management to shift their village. In this regard, he passed a resolution in the Gram Panchayat on 21 December last year and submitted a representation to the AGM (HR), NTPC on 5 January. A complaint was also filed with the Pollution Control Board.
Based on the complaint, PCB Ramagundam zonal officials recently collected samples from the village and sent them to the Warangal Zonal Lab for testing.
talking to Telangana Today, resident Mekala Srinivas said that the local people were suffering from health problems due to pollution of air and ground water. He alleged that the groundwater has become polluted due to accumulation of ash mixed water in the ash pond.
“People get skin allergies if they take bath using groundwater. Several people suffered breathing problems and four villagers died of kidney ailment,” he said, and alleged that NTPC was not organizing medical camps on the pretext of Covid in the last two years. So, we decided to intensify our agitation to put pressure on NTPC to shift the village.
Executive Engineer, Telangana Pollution Control Board, Ramagundam Zonal Office, K Ravi Das said that they had collected samples from the village and sent them to the Warangal Zonal Lab for testing. “Once we get the results, we will know how big is the air and groundwater pollution,” he said.
There seems to be another turning point in this matter. A villager, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the main issue this year was the denial of a contract to transfer the ashes to a villager, as has been going on for years, and that led to unrest among a section of youth.
Since Kundanpally is an NTPC affected village, the management used to give a villager to shift the ashes every year. He said that the person getting the permission used to pay Rs.6 lakh to the Gram Panchayat for village development.
Blaming a contractor from outside, who was allowed to take 60 lorry-loads of ashes, the villager said that he was transferring about 150 lorry-loads of ashes with the support of a local political leader, and anyone from the village was not allowing. to collect the ashes.
The villager said that each lorry of ash in the former Karimnagar district as well as Hyderabad is sold for Rs 25,000, each lorry load carrying 30 to 40 tonnes of ash.
The demand for ash has increased significantly as it is used in the manufacture of cement bricks, brick kilns, building constructions where it is mixed with sand and cement and for other purposes.
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