New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday relaxed the notification banning use of petcoke and furnace oil in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana for industries like cement, lime stone and thermal power plants in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

While cement and lime industries use petcoke, thermal power plants use furnace oil.

A bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta also issued a direction to the ministry of environment, forest affairs and climate change (MoEF & CC) to frame guidelines for regulating the use of petcoke.

The bench also exempted the lime stone industries from the purview of the October 24 order in respect of the use of petroleum coke.

The Centre had earlier informed the top court that the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has issued a direction prohibiting the use of petcoke and furnace oil until further orders in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.

The use of petcoke and furnace oil is already prohibited in Delhi. The top court had on October 24 banned use of petcoke and furnace oil in these three states from November 1 in view of the pollution levels in Delhi-national capital region (NCR) and noted that these states had no objection to it.

On December 4, the Centre filed an affidavit pleading for lifting the ban as petcoke and furnace oil are used in negligible quantities by the cement industry and power plants, respectively, and that too for non-fuel purposes.

Additional solicitor-general (ASG) Tushar Mehta had submitted that the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) utilises furnace oil of the amount of a mere 0.03 percent. By virtue of the same, the relaxation of the prohibition with respect to the said industrial units for a definite period of time had been suggested, allowing for the arrangement of an alternative and cleaner source of energy.

Additional solicitor-general A.N.S. Nadkarni, appearing for MoEF, told the court that the system of regulation on sale of petcoke would be brought into force within four weeks.     

On the use of pet coke in lime industries, the bench asked the government to come out with emission standards.

Regarding the use of furnace oil in thermal power plants, the amicus told the bench that Ministry of Power has requested allowing the use of furnace oil for a period of one year till the thermal power plants switch over to alternate fuel.

The bench accepted timeline given in this regard by the MoEF and said that thermal power plants would have to switch over to alternative fuel within a year.

Applications for modification of the said order were filed by industrial units engaged in cement manufacturing, paper manufacturing, malting, production of agro-foods, etc, in addition to the power generation company NTPC and aluminum manufacturer Hindalco Industries Ltd. The Bench relaxed the order in the PIL filed by environmental activist MC Mehta in 1985 on the issue of air pollution.