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  • Civil Services Reforms

    West Bengal IPS Controversy

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Civil Service

    Police personnel should not be made instruments of a political battle

    Tug of war between political parties in West Bengal

    • The appointment of three IPS officers of the West Bengal cadre to various posts by the Union Home Ministry on Thursday has escalated the confrontation between the State and the Centre.
    • Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has termed the deputation order despite the State’s objection “a colourable exercise of power and blatant misuse of emergency provision of IPS Cadre Rule 1954”.
    • The constant hostility between the State and Central governments is now taking a turn for the worse ahead of the 2021 Assembly election.
    • The tug of war began after a convoy of BJP President J.P. Nadda came under stone pelting in the State on December 10. The BJP apparently holds the IPS officers accountable for the incident.
    • After an initial move to recall these officials was resisted by the State, the Centre has invoked Section 6(1) of the Indian Police Service (Cadre) Rules, which says that “in case of any disagreement, the matter shall be decided by the Central Government….”

    Administrative instruments Vs. Political battles

    • The CM’s style of managing the police force has gained attention for the wrong reasons in the past.
    • Senior officials are seen as allied with the ruling govt and the oppositions determined drive to capture power in the State is multi-pronged.
    • The Supreme Court restrained West Bengal from taking any “coercive action” against several opposition leaders in criminal cases registered against them by the State Police.
    • The opposition continues to knock on the doors of the Court and the Election Commission of India to bring pressure on the State government.
    • By enforcing its writ on IPS officers, the Centre is sending a signal to all officers that their conduct will now be under scrutiny.

    Never-ending issues between the state and the centre

    • The central schemes, Ayushman Bharat and PM Kisan Samman Nidhi are also a bone of contention.
    • The Bengal government has refused to implement them, demanding that the funds be routed through the State.
    • The CM has also complained of insufficient central assistance to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and cyclone Amphan.
    • The Centre’s earlier demand that the Chief Secretary and DGP attend a meeting in New Delhi on the State’s law-and-order situation increased tensions.
    • The partisan use of the personnel and instruments of the state by parties in power as is happening in this tussle is a disturbing signal for democracy and federalism.

    Practice Question: The partisan use of the personnel and instruments of the state by parties in power is a disturbing signal for democracy and federalism. Elaborate.

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  • President’s Rule

    Andhra Pradesh High Court and the CM Row

    | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Federalism

    The Supreme Court has stayed an Andhra Pradesh High Court order intending to embark on a judicial enquiry into whether there is a constitutional breakdown in the State machinery, requiring a declaration of President’s rule.

    A backfire from the AP High Court

    • Andhra Pradesh CM had earlier sparked controversy by writing to the CJI complaining about a Supreme Court judge for allegedly influencing posting of cases in the State High Court.
    • The alleged Judge is slated to be the next Chief Justice of India, and some judges of the AP High Court have opened sharp criticism over AP CM’s move.

    What did the Supreme Court say?

    • The apex court found the enquiry highly disturbing. Hence it decided to stay the order.
    • Solicitor General Tushar Mehta asked why the High Court “should go into whether there is a constitutional breakdown in the State”.
    • The Solicitor General of the state government argued that it was not up to the High Court to enquire and recommend President’s rule in a State.

    Citations for the President’s Rule in a State

    • President’s rule is the suspension of state government and imposition of direct central government rule in a state.
    • It is Article 356 that deals with the failure of constitutional machinery in a State.
    • This power to impose President’s rule exclusively vests in the Central Executive.
    • Under Article 356, this move can be taken- if the President, on receipt of the report from the Governor of the State or otherwise, is satisfied that a situation has arisen…..
    • The power in this regard, like sending a report either to the President of India or to the Governor of the concerned State or to record a finding in that regard, cannot be exercised by the judiciary.

    How did the AP govt respond?

    • The AP govt said that the High Court’s observation violated the Basic Structure doctrine of the Constitution.
    • Under the constitutional framework, it is not for the courts to decide as to whether there is a constitutional breakdown in a State.
    • The said power has been specifically conferred upon a different constitutional authority – and rightly so.
    • It is needless to mention that the constitutional courts do not have any judicially discoverable and manageable standards to determine if there has been a constitutional breakdown,” the petition contended.

    Back2Basics:

    President’s Rule

    • President’s rule is the suspension of state government and imposition of direct central government rule in a state.

    How it is imposed?

    • President’s Rule implies the suspension of a state government and the imposition of direct rule of the Centre.
    • This is achieved through the invocation of Article 356 of the Constitution by the President on the advice of the Union Council of Ministers.
    • Under Article 356, this move can be taken “(1) If the President, on receipt of the report from the Governor of the State or otherwise, is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the government of the State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution…”

    How long President’s Rule can last

    • A proclamation of President’s Rule can be revoked through a subsequent proclamation in case the leader of a party produces letters of support from a majority of members of the Assembly, and stakes his claim to form a government.
    • The revocation does not need the approval of Parliament.
    • Any proclamation under Article 356 —which stands for six months — has to be approved by both Houses in the Parliament session following it.
    • This six-month time-frame can be extended in phases, up to three years.

    The S.R. Bommai Case

    • R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) was a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of India, where the Court discussed at length provisions of Article 356 of the Constitution of India and related issues.
    • The judgement attempted to curb blatant misuse of Article 356 of the Constitution of India, which allowed President’s rule to be imposed over state governments.
    • Article 356 (1) has been deliberately drafted in a narrow language by the Founding Fathers so that political parties in the Centre does not misuse it to subvert federalism, it had noted.
    • The expression used in the Article is ‘if the President is satisfied”, the court had observed.
    • In other words, the President has to be convinced of or should have sufficient proof of information with regard to or has to be free from doubt or uncertainty about the state of things indicating that the situation in question has arisen.
    • The court had stated that although the sufficiency or otherwise of the material cannot be questioned, the legitimacy of inference drawn from such material is “certainly open to judicial review”.

    What it directed?

    • The judgment had explained that in a multi-party political system, chances are high that the political parties in the Centre and the State concerned may not be the same.
    • Article 356 cannot be used for the purpose of political one-upmanship by the Centre.
    • Hence there is a need to confine the exercise of power under Article 356[1] strictly to the situation mentioned therein which is a condition precedent to the said exercise,” the court had said.

    Conditions for Prez Rule

    • Where after general elections to the assembly, no party secures a majority, that is, Hung Assembly.
    • Where the party having a majority in the assembly declines to form a ministry and the governor cannot find a coalition ministry commanding a majority in the assembly.
    • Where a ministry resigns after its defeat in the assembly and no other party is willing or able to form a ministry commanding a majority in the assembly.
    • Where a constitutional direction of the Central government is disregarded by the state government.
    • Internal subversion where, for example, a government is deliberately acting against the Constitution and the law or is fomenting a violent revolt.
    • Physical breakdown where the government willfully refuses to discharge its constitutional obligations endangering the security of the state.

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  • Cyber Security – CERTs, Policy, etc

    What is the SolarWinds Hack?

    | Security Issues | Mains Paper 3: Cyber Security

    The ‘SolarWinds hack’, a cyberattack recently discovered in the US, has emerged as one of the biggest ever targeted against the US government, its agencies and several other private companies.

    Do you know about the ‘Five Eyes’ group of nations?

    Solar-Winds Hack

    • It was first discovered by US cybersecurity company FireEye, and since then more developments continue to come to light each day.
    • The US termed it as a highly sophisticated threat actor calling it a state-sponsored attack, although it did not name Russia.
    • It said the attack was carried out by a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities and the attacker primarily sought information related to certain government customers.

    How dangerous is the attack?

    • This is being called a ‘Supply Chain’ attack.
    • Instead of directly attacking the federal government or a private organization’s network, the hackers target a third-party vendor, which supplies software to them.
    • Once installed, the malware gave a backdoor entry to the hackers to the systems and networks of SolarWinds’ customers.
    • More importantly, the malware was also able to thwart tools such as anti-virus that could detect it.

    The deadliest cyber-attack ever in the US

    • The US Energy department which is responsible for managing America’s nuclear weapons is the latest agency to confirm that it has been breached in the SolarWinds cyber attack.

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  • Global Geological And Climatic Events

    Christmas-Star Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter

    Prelims Only | Science Tech | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

    After nearly 400 years, Saturn and Jupiter – the two largest planets in our solar system – will be brought closest in the night sky by an astronomical event called the “great conjunction” and popularly referred to as the “Christmas Star”.

    Try this PYQ:

    What is a coma, in the context of Astronomy?

    (a) Bright half of material on the comet

    (b) Long tail of dust

    (c) Two asteroids orbiting each other

    (d) Two planets orbiting each other

    What are the Conjunctions?

    • A conjunction is not unique to Saturn and Jupiter however, it is the name given to any event where planets or asteroids appear to be very close together in the sky when viewed from the Earth.
    • In June 2005 for instance, as a result of the “spectacular” conjunction, Mercury, Venus and Saturn appeared so close together in the sky that the patch of sky where the three planets were could be covered by a thumb.
    • Astronomers use the word “great” for the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn because of the planets’ sizes.

    The “Great Conjunction”

    • It happens once in about 20 years because of the time each of the planets takes to orbit around the Sun.
    • Jupiter takes roughly 12 years to complete one lap around the Sun and Saturn takes 30 years.
    • This is because Saturn has a larger orbit and moves more slowly because it is not as strongly influenced by the Sun’s gravitational force as planets that are closer to the Sun.
    • As the two planets move along their orbits, every two decades, Jupiter catches up with Saturn resulting in what astronomers call the great conjunction.

    A ‘rare alignment’

    • Jupiter and Saturn are bright planets and can be typically seen with the naked eye even from cities.
    • But during conjunction, they appear to be close to each other, which is what makes the event noteworthy.
    • The event will coincide with the winter solstice (shortest day of the year in terms of hours of sunlight received) in the Northern Hemisphere and summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.
    • This year, however, the event is rare because the planets will come the closest to each other in nearly four centuries; in what astronomer Henry Throop described is a result of a “rare alignment” of the planets.

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  • Oil and Gas Sector – HELP, Open Acreage Policy, etc.

    Gas Production in Krishna-Godavari Basin

    National Parks/WS | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

    Reliance Industries Ltd and BP (British Petroleum) have announced the start of gas production from the R cluster of the KG Basin, the deepest off-shore gas field in Asia.

    Must read

    https://www.civilsdaily.com/burning-issue-natural-gas-marketing-reforms/

    Krishna-Godavari Basin

    • The Krishna Godavari Basin is a proven petroliferous basin of continental margin located on the east coast of India.
    • Its onland part covers an area of 15000 sq. km and the offshore part covers an area of 25,000 sq. km up to 1000 m isobath.
    • The basin contains about 5 km thick sediments with several cycles of deposition, ranging in age from Late Carboniferous to Pleistocene.
    • The major geomorphologic units of the Krishna Godavari basin are Upland plains, Coastal plains, Recent Flood and Delta Plains.

    Minerals found

    • KG inland and offshore basins have good prospects of tight oil and tight gas reserves from the conducted field studies.
    • The first gas discovery in the basin was in 1983.
    • Most of the conventional wells drilled and operated have a shorter lifespan than envisaged life and with erratic production.
    • This may be due to drilling of conventional wells in tight oil and gas fields without horizontal drilling in the shale rock formations and hydraulic fracturing.

    Note: Tight gas and tight oil are produced from reservoir rocks with such low permeability that considerable hydraulic fracturing is required to harvest the well at economic rates.

    The KGD6 block

    • Krishna Godavari Dhirubhai 6 (KG-D6) was Reliance’s first offshore gas field development and its first underwater discovery.
    • It was also India’s largest deposit of natural gas and the largest such discovery in the world in 2002.
    • The project takes its name from India’s Krishna-Godavari Basin, which covers more than 19,000 square miles (50,000 square kilometres) in Andhra Pradesh and production block D6 in the Bay of Bengal.

    Why is this important?

    • The R cluster, along with the Satellite Cluster and MJ gas fields in the KG Basin is expected to produce around 30 MMSCMD (million standard cubic metres per day) of natural gas.
    • This is about 15% of India’s projected demand for natural gas by 2023.

    Do they impact India’s energy security efforts?

    • The three projects are a key part of the plan to boost domestic production of natural gas to increase the share of natural gas in India’s energy basket from 6.2% now to 15% by 2030.
    • Increased domestic production of natural gas is an important aspect of reducing India’s dependence on imports and improves energy security.

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  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    Person in news: Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji

    PIB | History | Mains Paper 1: Arts & Culture

    The Prime Minister has paid tributes to Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji on his Martyrdom Day.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Consider the following Bhakti Saints:

    1. Dadu Dayal
    2. Guru Nanak
    3. Tyagaraja

    Who among the above was/were preaching when the Lodi dynasty fell and Babur took over?

    (a) 1 and 3

    (b) 2 only

    (c) 2 and 3

    (d) 1 and 2

    Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675)

    • Guru Tegh Bahadur was the ninth of ten Gurus of the Sikh religion. He was born at Amritsar in 1621 and was the youngest son of Guru Hargobind.
    • His term as Guru ran from 1665 to 1675. One hundred and fifteen of his hymns are in Guru Granth Sahib.
    • There are several accounts explaining the motive behind the assassination of Guru Tegh Bahadur on Aurangzeb’s orders.
    • He stood up for the rights of Kashmiri Pandits who approached him against religious persecution by Aurangzeb.
    • He was publicly killed in 1675 on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in Delhi for himself refusing Mughal rulers and defying them.
    • Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib and Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in Delhi mark the places of execution and cremation of his body.

    Impact of his martyrdom

    • The execution hardened the resolve of Sikhs against religious oppression and persecution.
    • His martyrdom helped all Sikh Panths consolidate to make the protection of human rights central to its Sikh identity.
    • Inspired by him, his nine-year-old son, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, eventually organized the Sikh group into a distinct, formal, symbol-patterned community came to be known as Khalsa (Martial) identity.

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  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    Koothambalam of Guruvayur Temple

    Prelims Only | History | Mains Paper 1: Arts & Culture

    The renovated Koothambalam of the Sreekrishna temple, Guruvayur, has been selected for the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for cultural heritage conservation.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Building ‘Kalyana Mandapas’ was a notable feature in the temple construction in the kingdom of-
    (a) Chalukya
    (b) Chandela
    (c) Rashtrakuta
    (d) Vijayanagara

    What is Koothambalam?

    • Koothambalam meaning temple theatre is a closed hall for staging Koothu, Nangiar koothu and Koodiyattam, the ancient ritualistic art forms of Kerala.
    • Koothambalams are said to be constructed according to the guidelines given in chapter 2 of Nātyasāstra of Bharata Muni.
    • The stage within the hall is considered to be as sacred as the temple sanctum.

    Its’ construction

    • It is constructed within the cloister of the Temple; more precisely within the pancaprakaras of the temple. The prescribe location is between the prakaras of bahyahara and maryada.
    • In Kerala tradition, it is considered as one among the panchaprasadas of a temple complex.
    • Its dimension varies from temple to temple.
    • A square platform with a separate pyramidal roof supported by pillars in the centre called natyamandapam is constructed as s separate structure within the large hall of Koothampalam.
    • The floor of the hall is divided into two equal halves and one part is for performance (including stage, instruments, green room etc.) and another half for seating audience.

    About Guruvayur Temple

    • It is a Hindu temple dedicated to the Hindu lord, Guruvayurappan (a four-armed form of the Lord Vishnu), located in the town of Guruvayur in Kerala.
    • It is one of the most important places of worship for Hindus in Kerala and is often referred to as Bhuloka Vaikunta (Holy Abode of Vishnu on Earth).

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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India – EU

    India-UK Relations

    op-ed snap | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: India & Its Neighborhood – Relations

    India and the U.K. must not allow concerns of the moment to dominate their relationship.

    Practice Question: Discuss the opportunities and the challenges in the India-UK relationships. What is the prospectus of India-UK relations after Brexit and Coronavirus pandemic?

    Secretary’s Delhi visit

    • British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s Delhi visit came with a declaration of immediate and longer-term goals for the India-U.K. relationship.
    • It prepares the way for PM Johnson’s India visit, as the chief guest at Republic Day and to invite PM Modi to the U.K. to the G-7 and the Climate Change (COP26) summits next year.
    • Johnson will be the first head of government to visit India after the spread of COVID-19; this will also be his first bilateral visit anywhere after Brexit signalling the importance of ties with India.

    A new page in ties

    • Upgrading the ties – Both countries up for upgrading of the 2004 India-U.K. Strategic Partnership to a “Comprehensive” Strategic Partnership.
    • This will help to envision closer military ties, cooperation in Indo-Pacific strategies, counter-terrorism and fighting climate change.
    • Hoping for FTA – Britain is on a mission to secure free trade partners after Brexit. It has wrapped up nearly 20 trade deals, including most recently with the U.S., Japan, and Vietnam and is hoping for India to sign the same.
    • Corona pandemic and cooperation for vaccine manufacturing – The highlight of India’s relations will be closer cooperation on the coronavirus vaccine.
    • India’s Serum Institute set to produce and distribute the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in India, and then as part of the COVAX project to other developing countries.

    Challenges in India-UK relations

    • Stagnancy in the relations – India-UK relations are stagnant for the past five years due to Britain’s Brexit preoccupation.
    • The relationship has failed to progress in this time, despite visits by Mr Modi and former British Prime Minister Theresa May.
    • Other less important issues gained the narrative – Issues such as visas and the fate of fugitive Indian businessmen in the U.K. have been allowed to dominate the narrative.
    • The MEA had responded sharply to protests at the Indian High Commission in London over the Article 370 move in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
    • Britain’s concerns about the farmers’ protests that sparked responses in New Delhi about interference in India’s internal matters.
    • Sometimes, intense interest from the British Indian diaspora makes Indian politics a factor in British politics is a reminder of how closely linked the two countries remain.
    • A new chapter in India-UK relationship would necessarily entail the K. to be more sensitive to India’s concerns, and for India to be less sensitive when Britain expresses its concerns.

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  • Agricultural Sector and Marketing Reforms – eNAM, Model APMC Act, Eco Survey Reco, etc.

    In agri-reforms, go back to the drawing board

    op-ed snap | Agriculture | Mains Paper 3: Issues Related To Farm Subsidies & Msp

    The intended beneficiaries often understand the realities of the systems better; policymakers need to build trust.

    Practice Question: The farmers protest against the new farm laws rises the serious concerns about the policymaking and involvement of citizen in the process by experts. What can be done to improve the trust of the public and how the challenge of agricultural income be solved?

    Reassessment is needed

    • The purpose of agriculture reforms is to increase farmers’ incomes. Farmers want the laws repealed.
    • The Supreme Court of India has called for discussions between the government and farmers around the country.
    • It is time to go back to the drawing board about the purpose and the process of agriculture reforms.
    • According to economists, fewer people must work on farms for farm productivity and incomes to be improved. Which begs the question of how the millions displaced from farms will earn incomes.
    • Indian industry is not growing much. There too, according to economists, humans should be replaced by technology for improving productivity.

    Flipside of productivity

    • Landholdings are too small for mechanization to improve farm productivity. Their solution is to ‘scale-up’ farms.
    • Mechanization requires standardization of work, hence mechanized farming on scale requires monocropping.
    • Large-scale specialization upsets the ecological balance. Reduced diversity of flora enables pests to spread more easily; soil quality is reduced; water resources get depleted.
    • Solutions to these new problems require more industrial inputs, with more costs for farmers.
    • The harmful side-effects of this approach to improve agriculture productivity are very visible in Punjab nowhere farm incomes have grown at the cost of water resources.

    Nature’s self-adaptive system

    • The ecological imbalance out of monocropping made the trees more vulnerable to pests.
    • Nature is a complex ‘self-adaptive’ system. It knows how to take care of itself.
    • When Man tries to overpower Nature with his science and industry, without understanding how Nature functions, he harms Nature — and ultimately himself.
    • Challenges of environmental degradation and increasing inequalities require that the economic calculus shifts from ‘economies of scale with standardization’ to ‘economies of scope for sustainability’.
    • This will make large-scale mechanization more difficult. It will require the use of more ‘flexible’ human labour.
    • In the long run, not only will this be good for the ecology, but it will also increase employment and incomes for people in the lower half of the economic pyramid.

    Market access

    • Farm incomes can increase with access to wider markets for farm produce, which is an objective of the agricultural reforms.
    • Indian farmers fear that they will not have adequate pricing power when pushed into large supply systems and less regulated markets.
    • Connections into global supply chains can increase volumes of sales which always favour the larger players in the supply chains who have easier access to capital.
    • Studies show that farmers in developed countries formed collectives which enable their voice to be heard by politicians and they could set the rules of global trade.

    Strengthen cooperatives

    • Institutions for cooperative ownership and collective bargaining must be strengthened to give power to small farmers before opening markets to large corporations.
    • A very good example is the Indian dairy sector. It’s ‘per person productivity is much lower than in New Zealand and Australian dairy producers’.
    • Still, it provides millions of tiny producers with reasonable incomes which large-scale industrial dairy producers do not.
    • Moreover, with its cooperative aggregation, the Indian dairy sector has also acquired political clout.
    • It has compelled the Indian government not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to connect the Indian economy with larger supply chains.

    Low agriculture income

    • The problem of low incomes in India’s agriculture sector is a complex systems problem which cannot be solved by agriculture experts alone.
    • Experts from many disciplines must collaborate to find systemic solutions.
    • The intended beneficiaries of the new policies must be included in the designing of the new policies right at the beginning as they understand the realities of systems better than experts.
    • When policymakers say ‘the people don’t get it’ after the policy is announced and the intended beneficiaries protest, it is an indication that the experts didn’t get it.

    The reforms of the 1990s

    • The stand-off in agriculture reforms has caused a flurry of discussions about democracy, consultation, and processes for economic reforms.
    • The immediate beneficiaries of the 1991 reforms were all Indian consumers, rich and poor, who would benefit from access to better quality products from around the world.
    • The principal opponents of the reforms were a few large industrialists whose products citizens were not satisfied with.
    • Governments have more power over a few industrialists than they have over the masses.
    • The 1991 reforms changed industrial licensing and trade policies — both subjects of the Union government.
    • ‘Factor market’ reforms, inland, agriculture, and labour regulations, which are necessary to realize the full benefits of the 1991 reforms are State subjects.
    • They affect the lives of people on the ground, and differently, around the country. Therefore, the central government, no matter how strong it is, must not force these reforms onto the States.

    Conclusion:

    Silo experts cannot help

    • India’s policymakers must improve their expertise in solving complex, multi-disciplinary problems.
    • They must apply the discipline of systems thinking, and not rely on siloed domain experts.
    • Citizens around the country must be involved in the policymaking throughout the evolution of policies.
    • The policies of the government should create public value and it satisfies the desire of citizens for a well-ordered society, in which fair, efficient, and accountable public institutions exist.
    • Trust is essential for a well-governed society. The lesson for India’s leaders is- good processes for making public policies build trust between citizens and their governments.

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  • Waste Management – SWM Rules, EWM Rules, etc

    Converting waste to energy

    op-ed snap | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 1: Population & Associated Issues

    The new plant at Bidadi has several advantages but also some operational challenges.

    Practice Question: Discuss the various benefits of waste to energy plants and challenges in running them successfully.

    The prospectus of new plant

    • The new 5 MW waste-to-energy plant is going to set up near Bidadi, Karnataka.
    • This plant is expected to process 600 tonnes per day of inorganic waste.
    • The inorganic waste, which consists of bad quality plastics and used cloth pieces, can be processed as Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). This material has a calorific value of more than 2,500 kJ/kg.
    • This can be used to generate steam energy, which can be converted into electric energy.

    A well-planned plant

    • The waste-to-energy plants usually accept the RDF material generated in organic composting plants.
    • They also segregate the wet and inorganic material near the plant, convert organic waste to compost, and inorganic waste to energy.
    • About 50 tonnes of RDF generate 1 MW of power, which indicates that the plant at Bidadi has been appropriately designed.

    A permanent solution

    • Handling inorganic waste that is not fit for recycling has always been a challenge.
    • At present, these high-calorific materials are landfilled or left unhandled in waste plants and cause fire accidents.
    • Attempts to send this material to cement kilns have not fructified.
    • The proposed plant can source 600 tonnes per day of this RDF and generate 11.5 MW of power equivalent to 2.4 lakh units of power per day.
    • This will reduce the dependence on unscientific landfills, reduce fire accidents, and provide a permanent solution to recover value from inorganic waste.

    Challenges

    • Needed a good demonstration model – Over the last decade, several Indian cities have been trying to set up such plants but a good demonstration model is yet to be established.
    • Nature of waste – Technology suppliers are international organizations who struggle with the change in quality and nature of waste generated in Indian cities. A few plants in India have stopped operations for this reason.
    • The plants require fine inorganic material with less than 5% moisture and less than 5% silt and soil contents, whereas the moisture and inert content in the mixed waste generated is more than 15%-20%.
    • The sticky silt and soil particles can also reduce the calorific value.
    • Economic cost per unit of electricity – The other big challenge for this plant is the power tariff which is around ₹7-8 KwH which is higher than the ₹3-4 per KwH generated through coal and other means.

    Way forward

    • For the successful running, the plant needs to ease the challenge of handling inorganic waste, the efficiency of organic waste processing/ composting plants.
    • With the increasing waste generation in the coming years, there is a need for more such plants which are environment friendly. 

    Back2Basics: Refuse-derived fuel (RDF)

    • Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) is a fuel produced from various types of waste such as municipal solid waste (MSW), industrial waste or commercial waste.
    • It is selected waste and by-products with recoverable calorific value can be used as fuels in a cement kiln, replacing a portion of conventional fossil fuels, like coal, if they meet strict specifications.
    • Sometimes they can only be used after pre-processing to provide ‘tailor-made’ fuels for the cement process.
    • RDF consists largely of combustible components of such waste, as non-recyclable plastics (not including PVC), paper cardboard, labels, and other corrugated materials.
    • These fractions are separated by different processing steps, such as screening, air classification, ballistic separation, separation of ferrous and non-ferrous materials, glass, stones and other foreign materials and shredding into a uniform grain size, or also pelletized.
    • This produces a homogeneous material which can be used as a substitute for fossil fuels in e.g. cement plants, lime plants, coal-fired power plants or as a reduction agent in steel furnaces.

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