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Construction of 11 nuclear power reactors with a total capacity of 8,700 MW (including 500 MW by Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Ltd, a Government of India enterprise) is underway in India, Jitendra Singh, Union minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions as well as Prime Minister’s Office, told the Rajya Sabha.
India currently has 22 nuclear reactors with an installed nuclear power capacity of 6,780 megawatts, Singh said.
Out of the installed capacity, RAPS-1 (100 MW) is under extended shutdown. TAPS 1 and 2 (2X160 MW) and MAPS-1 (220 MW) are under project mode for performance enhancement, the minister added.
The Union government has approved 57 solar parks of a cumulative capacity of 39,285 megawatts in 13 states, RK Singh, Union minister for new and renewable energy as well as power, told the Lok Sabha December 22, 2022.
The Government of Madhya Pradesh reported that solar plants are planned based on the availability of contiguous and barren land parcels. It reported that as of now, no solar plants are proposed in the state’s tribal areas, Singh added.
During 2019-21, the most polluted stretch of river Yamuna was that flowing through Delhi, followed by locations downstream in Uttar Pradesh, an analysis of the river’s biochemical oxygen demand by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) revealed. The data was mentioned by Prahlad Singh Patel, Union minister of state for Jal Shakti (water resources) in the Lok Sabha.
Maximum concentration observed was 114 milligrams per litre during 2020, Patel said.
Water quality of Yamuna is monitored by CPCB under the National Water Quality Monitoring Programme, in association with the state pollution control boards / pollution control committees of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh at 33 locations, he noted.
A total of 7.3 gigawatts of rooftop solar capacity has been installed in India as on November 30, 2022, Singh told the Lok Sabha. The installations were made under the Rooftop Solar Programme Phase-II that envisaged installation of 4,000 megawatts of rooftop solar capacity in the residential sector by providing central financial assistance and incentives to power distribution companies.
A provision of total central financial support of Rs 11,814 crore, including service charges to the implementing agencies, has been made under the programme, which was initially scheduled for completion by 2022.
The central government has not envisaged a separate scheme / fund for creating infrastructure to utilise rainfall runoff for groundwater recharge in Delhi, Patel said in the Lok Sabha.
In the national capital, Out of the 175 million cubic metres of estimated rainfall runoff, including stormwater, in Delhi, 24 million cubic metres can be utilised for artificial recharge to groundwater, according to the city’s master plan.
To utilise the surplus runoff, 12 check dams, 22,706 recharge shaft / trench and 304,500 rooftop rainwater harvesting structures were planned. The implementation has to be done through existing schemes of state governments, the minister noted.
No critically endangered coral species has been reported from Indian waters, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Union minister of state for environment, forest and climate change, told the Rajya Sabha.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature recorded 73 critically endangered species in India, the minister said. These include nine species of mammals, 18 of birds, 26 reptiles and 20 amphibians, he added.
The National Green Tribunal has penalised the governments of Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in various cases to do with environment conservation, Choubey told the Rajya Sabha.
Further, environmental compensation was imposed by NGT-Delhi on Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and West Bengal for non-implementation of Solid Waste and Sewage Treatment Plan and other environmental issues, according to information from CPCB, he added.