Graphite India: Petcoke used for packaging, not fuel

The Graphite India Ltd (GIL) informed the Supreme Court on Friday that it was not using imported needle petroleum coke (petcoke) at its Bengaluru plant, which is facing complaints about pollution and emission of black dust.

The GIL told a bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta that it was using domestic petcoke at the plant, that too, for packaging and not as fuel.

The top court had on October 9 taken note of a report filed by the court-mandated Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) which had said that the GIL’s plant in Whitefield had utilised domestic petcoke which was causing huge amount of pollution and black dust in the area.

The court had then issued a notice to the GIL asking it to explain why the use of needle petcoke should not be stopped with immediate effect since it was “causing tremendous pollution and damage to the health of the community in Bengaluru”.

Seeks more time

During the hearing, the counsel appearing for GIL said they needed some time to file their affidavit in the matter.

The lawyer told the bench that a team of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) had also visited the site.

The bench asked the GIL to file its affidavit and posted the matter for hearing on October 23. It also asked the KSPCB to file its report before it.

In September, the apex court had allowed the application of the GIL seeking its permission to import needle petcoke to be used as feed stock for manufacture of graphite electrodes, used in the steel industry.

‘Matter very urgent’

When the issue of pollution from the plant was raised before the court on October 9, the bench had said that the matter had to be dealt with urgently as it was affecting the health of the people in the area. The court is hearing the issue related to petcoke which had cropped up while adjudicating a matter of air pollution in the Delhi national capital region.