Haryana to power projects on own land

The Haryana Renewable Energy Development Authority is planning to bring amendments to the renewable energy policy in order to fast track the power projects, which have failed to take off due to delay in land acquisition.

Five independent power producers (IPPs) during February 2007 to April 2008 signed MoUs for the first time with the government for setting up biomass-based power plants in the state.

These players proposed to generate 183 Mw of power from biomass (wheat straw, rice husk and plywood residue) at 20 sites including in Yamuna Nagar, Karnal, Jind, Sonepat, Panipat, Kaithal, Sirsa, Hissar, Bhiwani, Mahendergarh, Kurukshetra and Fatehbad districts.

However, they are finding it tough to acquire land along the national highway 1 (GT Road) due to the exorbitant land cost. Land has been acquired at only five sites.

According to sources, since the cost of the land is one of the most important factors, the department is of the view that those owning land in the identified block should only vie for the project. A proposal to introduce online application is also being mulled to expedite power generation under renewable energy.

As the IPPs will get exemption from electricity duty, local area development tax and banking facility, the state government does not want to offer any concession on land acquisition, the sources said.

Ideally, the projects should have been commissioned within 30 months of signing the MoUs and 18 months of submitting the detailed project report.

Haryana is falling short of its renewable power generation target by 500Mw.

It may be recalled that the state government envisaged generating over 13 million units per day from renewable projects by the middle of the year 2008 as announced in June 2006.