Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) to tighten the pollution norms for coal-based power plants in the country.

• Norms for emissions of particulate matter (PM), SO2, NOx and mercury and cut water use by coal-based thermal power plants.
• India currently has no standards for SO2, NOx and mercury emissions from this sector.
• Proposed standards for new plants (after 2017) will cut down emissions of
•  particulate matter by 25%, 
• sulphur dioxide (SO2) by 90%, 
• nitrogen oxide (NOx) by 70% and 
• mercury by 75% compared with the state-of-the-art plants
• Existing plants will need to meet tighter standards