Cement, Energy and Environment

Recent Developments The Technical Committee of CMA has been reconstituted with Shri L. Rajasekar taking over as the new Chairman from a long time Mentor, Shri S K Wali, Wholetime Director of J K Lakshmi Cement Ltd, who throughout his tenure successfully guided the Association in all its Technical Matters to build industry consensus and help in facilitating the Authorities to take rational decisions on the Cement sector. CMA Technical Committee gratefully acknowledges and places on Record here the Yeoman Services rendered by Shri Wali to its Technical Committee since almost its inception. Besides Shri L Rajasekar, Executive President of UltraTech Cement Limited, as the New Chairman of the CMA Technical Committee, and Shri P.N. Chhangani (Shree Cement Ltd) as its Co– Chairman, we now have Shri Sanjay Agrawal (UitraTech Cement Ltd), Shri J. S. Kalra (Satna Cement Works}, and Shri V. S. Bajaj (Jaiprakash Associates Ltd) as the new Chairmen of the Task Forces on Environment, Energy, Mines and Minerals respectively. Following key activities were transacted during the period. BIS ISSUES In keeping with the resolve of the industry and the observations of BIS, NCB in its Research & Advisory Committee (RAC} Meeting held on 28th May 2015 incorporated the project Studies on Performance Improvers (PI) and Fixed W/C Ratio in its Agenda under their current R & D Programme. Subsequently one of the above projects on Fixed W/C Ratio was sponsored to NCB by one of the Member Company, M/s. UltraTech Cement Ltd to expedite the studies. Consequently another project on increasing Fly Ash content beyond 35% in PPC has been included in the current programme. Meanwhile, NCB has received necessary samples, sent by the Cement plants identified for undertaking the above Studies. CMA also submitted its comments on the draft Guidelines being prepared for Use of Various Types of Cement to BIS for further processing. ENVIRONMENT ISSUES Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS): Further to CMA's request to Chairman, CPCB, for further extension of the time-line for on-line monitoring systems upto 31st December 2015, citing industry's difficulties, CPCB convened a Stakeholders' Meeting on 16th June 2015 under the Chairmanship of Chairman, CPCB at MOEF & CC to review the status of the implementation. In this meeting, CMA reiterated its earlier submission and sought specific clarifications on the following besides reiterating its request to extend the deadline to 31st December 2015, that are, a) Non-availability of the SPCBs servers for connecting the CEMS data, the inability of plants to connect their CEMS should not be viewed as non-compliance and such units may not be penalized for no fault of theirs. b) Non-applicability of the Online Monitoring for plants having capacity of less t han 3 MTPA. c) Clarification regarding Continuous Online Monitoring System for effluent requirement for CPPs in the light of their maintaining zero discharge condition.