tamil nadu's brick-makers who have been using flyash generated by thermal power plants in the state, will have to pay for the ash under the pretext of handling and delivery costs. Complaints regarding these payments were received by the Visakhapatnam-based Institute for Solid Waste Research and Ecological Balance, which has popularised a technology for making bricks that have a higher quality than the clay bricks that utilise flyash.

The institute, in a letter to the chief minster M Karunanidhi, has pinpointed that the thermal stations of the state electricity board (seb) are charging upto Rs 220 per tonne of flyash, thereby violating the orders of the Centre that it be delivered free of cost to user-manufacturers.

Essentially, the plants require to install a dry ash collection system as is being done in the Vijaywada Thermal Station under the Andhra Pradesh seb. In this kind of a system, after being sprayed with water, the flyash can be directly put in the trucks of users which can in turn be transported after being properly covered.