NTPC committed to Gajamara super thermal project

Ruling out any possibility of pulling out from its 1600 Mw super thermal power project proposed at Gajamara , NTPC Ltd, the country's biggest thermal power producer has informed the Odisha government that it remains committed to the project.

"At a meeting held on May 1 at the Chief Secretary level, NTPC's regional executive director M S Soni has informed that the company is very keen to implement the Gajamara project. They have also requested the state government to carry on necessary action on land acquisition”, an official source told Business Standard.

Notification under Section 4 (1) of Land Acquisition Act has already been issued for acquisition of 796 acres of land at Gajamara project in Dhenkanal district. NTPC has urged the state government to expedite issue of 6 (1) notification. The Gajamara project needs 1013 acres of land.

Besides Gajamara, NTPC had also proposed to set up 1600 Mw coal-based plant at Darlipalli in Sundergarh district. Odisha will get 50 per cent power from the Darlipalli super thermal plant. This power plant needs 1652 acres of land.

The Darlipalli super thermal power project will draw water from the Hirakud reservoir in the Mahanadi river. NTPC has secured coal linkage for this project in the form of Dulunga coal block with mine capacity of seven million tonnes per annum (mtpa) under command area of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) and Pakri Barwadih block in Bihar's Hazaribagh district with 12.5 mtpa. The project cost is estimated at Rs 12850.07 crore.

Besides, the company is also going ahead with capacity expansion of its Talcher Thermal Power Station (TTPS). The company is adding two super critical units of 660 MW each to this power plant whose current capacity stands at 460 MW. No land is needed to meet the capacity expansion programme and this would be readied by the first year of the 13th Plan (2017-22).

The navratna power utility, which has an installed capacity of 3460 MW in Orissa will pump over Rs 50,000 crore in generating additional capacity of 9320 MW in the state by the end of 2017.