ASHES TO DUMP

Worried at the growing mountain of flyash being produced by the 70 thermal power stations across the country, the ministries of power, environment and science and technology of the Indian government have come together to jointly set up a flyash mission to identify various applications of the toxic material, whose reckless dumping destroys about 40,000 ha of land annually. Official figures indicate that the quantity of flyash is likely to cross the 100-million tonne mark by the turn of the century. So far, only scattered efforts hand been made to identify the uses of this 'unwanted by-product of thermal power generation.