Udupi: the Udupi Power Corporation (UPCL) producing 500 MW of power as a thermal station based on coal, completed one year of functioning on June 21, 2011. When people complained of fly ash polluting the town atmosphere, waters and fields, the state govt promised to constitute an enquiry committee. Nothing was done, despite KRRS agitation and Pejawar Moth seer’s intervention to rectify stances.
Minister Krishna Palemar who handles Environment and inland waters port folio, had not provided any answer about the Committee formation in an year.
Over 100 families suffer even now, the ill-effects of fly ash on their health and surroundings, around Nandikur. In monsoon, heaps of fly ash have caved in and separated. The watery ash went into 25 acres of farmlands nearby, polluting them.
People around Padubidri staged regular protests, when the thermal plant on coat heat was planned on 800 acres of Yellur and Palimar, out of Panchayat villages, acquired by KJADB, then. The fly ash problem is a hard nut to crack even today.