In India's coal pollution map, Singrauli, a 2,200 sqkm region shared between Uttar Pradesh's Sonbhadra district and Madhya Pradesh, is the darkest spot. The Uttar Pradesh side is just 200 kilometres from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi, where rising pollution is a major concern. India's thermal power hub, Singrauli, is set to miss the 2018 deadline to cut dangerous emissions from its coal-based power plants. In Singrauli, twice the size of Delhi, more than two-and-a-half lakh tonnes of coal is burnt every day. 10 coal-based power plants here have a generation capacity of over 21,000 MW, the largest for one region.
