The unparallel thrust by the Government of India on development of infrastructure especially in education, health, transport and communication is witnessing massive growth of construction industry. In order to keep pace between demand and supply of construction materials, huge quantity of argillaceous / earthen resources expected to be consumed resulting in degradation of throusands of hectares of land in coming years. Flyash, which is available in huge quantities in the country from coal based thermal power plants has been successfully used in the manufacture of variety of building materials like bricks, blocks and tiles. Further, concrete roads with 15-25 percent substitution of cement by flyash as well as roller compacted concrete with high doses of flyash have been constructed.

Exhaustive R&D efforts have been made all over the world to explore the use of coal ash/ flyash as low cost soil modifier and nutrient supplier in the field of agriculture. The study in this direction had focus on to improve the productivity of agricultural  products besides modifying the soil conditions.

Studies so far conducted in the country and elsewhere have shown that coal ash contains micro and macro nutrients and also improves many of the vital physical and morphological attributes of the soil mass. Soil ash admixtures with requisite quantities of flyash improves the water retention capacity of soil together with release of nutrient elements such as Ca, Mg, S, K, P, Cu and Zn in considerable quantities. In India, the methodology of flyash utilisation in the field of agriculture has been recently demonstrated by Regional Research Laboratory, Bhopal at Rihandnagar Angul and Damanjodi (Orissa) and Sarni (MP).

Editorial Team…..

This series of news letter is a quarterly publication of ENVIS   Center on subject area Fly ash at Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee sponsored by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), New Delhi. Contributions to the news letter are welcome.                                               

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