Central Pollution Control Board notice to Kalaburagi cement plant

Bengaluru: The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has issued a notice to a cement plant in Kalaburagi district after a team from the Board inspected the plant and flagged several deviations from the rules.

The Kalaburagi Cement Private Limited in Chatrasala village in Chincholi taluk, is an integrated cement plant with permission to produce 3.6 million tonnes per annum of cement and 2.75 million tonnes per annum of clinker, generate 30 MW in its captive power plant and 8.4 MW waste heat recovery system. The CPCB notice said that while the factory had installed continuous emission monitoring systems (CEMS) in five stacks, the CEMS for particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) was not installed in the stack attached to the boiler with a 130 tonne per hour capacity.

Further, the PM concentration in three stacks exceeded the prescribed limits of 30 milligrams/cubic metre. It was 38.11, 63.29 and 357.42 milligrams/cubic metre in the Reverse Air Bag House, cement mill-1 and clinker cooler stacks, respectively.
These high levels of PM concentration were, however, found through manual observation.

The CPCB said a “significant deviation was observed” between the PM concentration observed through CEMS, which showed below 30 mg/cubic metre and the manual monitored results. “Further, PM-CEMS data for Cement Mill-2 was observed on CPCB RTDMS portal even when the mill was non-operational,” the notice said and directed the factory to take corrective actions.