Power plant under Orion Group fined

Department of Environment (DoE) on Sunday fined a power generation company under Orion Group Tk 50 lakh for building its infrastructure without the environment clearance. The authorities of the power generation unit, ‘Digital Power and Associates Ltd’, have already built 95 percent of the infrastructure without any location clearance or environment impact assessment (EIA). Power generation plants as ‘red listed’ by DoE and require to conduct and EIA for getting the environment clearance from DoE before their installation.
After a hearing at DoE Dhaka headquarters, its director (monitoring and enforcement) Mohammad Alamgir fined the representatives of the company with Tk 50 lakh for the violation of environment laws. “If such establishment starts operation, it’ll lead to air, soil and water pollution and pose serious environmental and health hazards,” Alamgir observed.
Usually, power generation plants refine the heavy fuel oil (HFO) which leads to the discharge of huge quantity of effluents into soil and water, he added.