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Hyderabad , Sept. 30

THE Union Ministry for Urban Development is willing to support the setting up of a national training institute for promoting the utilisation of fly ash and rice husk ash and create trained manpower.

Announcing this, the Minister of State for Urban Development & Poverty Alleviation, Mr Bandaru Dattatreya, said there was an urgent need to translate the large amount of fly ash (a thermal power plant waste) and rice husk (paddy wastes), which are potentially harmful to the environment into useful products like bricks.

The small-scale entrepreneurship driven industry that can emerge would provide employment. Already about 1,200 entrepreneurs are producing 300 crore bricks, generating work to over 18,000 artisans.

This can be multiplied manifold with the massive housing projects in the country.

There was a need to build 1.35 crore houses with an investment of Rs 1,25,000 crore, the Minister said.

Mr Dattatreya said the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) was also actively considering modification of the Gazette notification to encourage the utilisation of fly ash waste.

The Urban Development Ministry has already announced its intention to provide further fiscal incentives for its promotion, he said in his valedictory address at a two-day seminar on the subject, organised by the Visakhapatnam-based INSWAREB and FABMAS.

Earlier, the former Chairman of the Housing Development Corporation (Hudco), Mr V. Suresh, presenting a set of recommendations that emerged at the workshop said the State Governments should extend the sales tax exemptions up to 2010 to encourage the utilisation of fly ash.

He said the construction departments of the Government like the Public Works Department, Housing Corporations etc. should ensure at least 20 per cent use of fly ash based bricks in their construction. Similarly, thermal stations should encourage quality and graded availability of fly ash to entrepreneurs for brick making, mixing with cement etc.

The generation of fly ash by the 75 plus thermal power stations is over 100 millions and estimates suggest that the production would grow to 170 million tonnes in a decade, which would occupy about 50,000 acres of land.

Similarly, the country generated over 20 million tonnes of rice husk annually from the 100 million tonnes of paddy.

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