Videocon completes land acquisition for power plant

Videocon Group, a diverse business conglomerate, has completed the entire 1,100 acres land acquisition for its proposed power plant project at Pipavav in Gujarat. While the group's power arm, Videocon Power, acquired 900 acres on its own, the state government recently allotted the additional 200 acres.

As part of its a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the Gujarat government during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit (VGGIS) 2009, Videocon Group had announced setting up a 1200 MW coal fired power project at Pipavav for an outlay of Rs 8,000 crore.

"Gradually, we had begun acquiring land little by little. It was only recently that the entire land acquisition got completed when the state government allotted us the remaining 200 acres. We should be commissioning the plant in next 3-4 years," said Venugopal Dhoot, chairman, Videocon Group.

The group acquired the 900 acres of land for about Rs 80 crore, Dhoot said.

According to Dhoot, the group will invest Rs 5,000 crore for the first phase, construction of which has begun, and Rs 3,000 crore for the second phase. "We will supply coal from our Indonesian mine for the Pipavav power plant," Dhoot added.

It has been learnt that the group has also achieved financial closure and already placed order with BHEL for machineries for 1200 Mw. Apparently, Videocon had also signed power purchase agreement (PPA) for Pipavav project with Tata Power for about 1200 Mw.

When asked about the upcoming Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January 2013, Dhoot said that he would be visiting the knowledge-cum-investment summit this year as well.

"However, we would not be signing any fresh MoUs with the Gujarat government this time around," Dhoot added.