Haryana gets concessions on DG sets till November 30

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) on Wednesday granted exemption to the Haryana government on use of diesel generator sets for 20 cases till November 30.

EPCA had enforced Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) from October 15 onwards banning the use of diesel generator sets in Delhi and its vicinity towns of Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon. However, the Haryana power department recently sought exemption till November 30 for colonies, which were not connected to grid and were dependent on DG sets.

EPCA chairman Bhure Lal, in his letter to the chief secretary of Haryana, said, “EPCA is granting the exemption to 15 cases — 14 residential complexes and one commercial complex — as requested by you and on the assurance that this will be only for the period up to November 30, 2020.”

Besides, five cases, which are fully dependent on DG sets due to non-compliance of electrical inadequacies, were also given exemption till November 30. However, EPCA directed the Haryana government to “submit the affidavits and the information that the matter from Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam has been resolved within 8-10 days.”

EPCA also permitted commercial institutions/ industries to use DG sets as a secondary source/ back up in case of power disruption, with a few conditions. The body asked the power department to ensure regular supply and direct industries to check compliance.

EPCA said commercial institutions/industries will maintain logbooks on use of DG sets for power backups, which will be fortnightly/monthly verified.

“All commercial setups/industries that still require DG sets for the assured supply of power (for backup for short duration breaks) should be encouraged to move to cleaner sources of distributed power like gas- based DGs or solar powered systems. You are requested to discuss this with industry bodies/NASSCOM and others and revert to EPCA on the feasibility of this,” said Lal to the Haryana government.