NTPC seeks land for ash pond, rail corridor at Gajamara

NTPC Ltd, the country's biggest thermal power producer, has sought 745.15 acres of land for ash dyke, reservoir area, ash pipe line corridor and railway line corridor for its 1600 Mw super thermal power project coming up at Gajamara in Dhenkanal district.

The power generating utility wants 437.12 acres for ash dyke and 11o.61 acres for reservoir area.

Similarly, it has put the requirement for its ash pipe line corridor and railway line corridor at 56.3 acres and 138.12 acres respectively.

The state-owned Investment Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha Ltd (Ipicol) has assessed the land requirement at 538.34 acres against NTPC's demand of 745.15 acres.

Ipicol has recommended to the energy department to accord administrative approval to NTPC for the land.

Notification under Section 4 (1) of Land Acquisition Act has already been issued for acquisition of private land for the Gajamara project. NTPC has urged the state government to expedite issue of 6 (1) notification. The Gajamara project needs 1013 acres of land.Of the total land needed for the project, 795.85 acres are privately owned. The land is to be acquired in four affected villages- Talabarkote (440.23 acres), Patra bhag (194.61 acres), Manipur (99.46 acres) and Siaria (61.55 acres). NTPC has to fork out Rs 152.54 crore for acquisition of the private land.

NTPC will set up a power engineering institute at Dhenkanal that is linked to its Gajamara plant.

The utility major is setting up another super thermal power plant at Darlipalli in western Odisha's Sundargarh district. This plant is expected to be commissioned by 2018.

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 Dulanga 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 million tonne per annum (mtpa).