Bihar may lose two power projects

Unavailability of land and necessary approvals from Centre stop projects

Two proposed thermal power projects in Bihar are on the verge of being cancelled as due to unavailability of land and necessary approvals from the central government.

These proposed power projects were to be set up by NTPC and NHPC at Bhagalpur and Lakhisarai districts.

The 1,320 MW power project at Pirpainti (Bhagalpur) was awarded to the NHPC, while the NTPC was given the task to set up a generation project of equivalent capacity at Kajara (Lakhisarai).

The power projects were to be developed jointly through a joint venture company with Bihar Power Generation Company, a state government owned PSU.

The state government had signed MoUs with these companies on February, 2014. According to the Energy Department sources, the companies were expected to acquire the land in two years and get necessary approvals in this period.

"However, neither of those could be done. The MoUs are set to expire by next month and there has been no communication from any of them about an extension. If the deal is not extended, the projects would have to be shelved. This will be a huge loss to us," said a senior official involved in the matter.

According to the state government officials, despite its repeated requests to clear the pending projects, these plants were not cleared.

"These plants are yet to be approved by the Public Investment Board and Cabinet Sub-Committee on Economic Affairs. Even the cabinet note, which is a basic procedure, has not been prepared. Neither the task of deciding the sharing of produced electricity was met. You can understand the level of apathy," said a senior leader from the ruling Janata Dal (United).

The state government is demanding 85 percent share in the electricity to be produced from the proposed power projects. Apart from that, the land acquisition work also went very slow. The NTPC has so far acquired only 974 out of the required 1250 acres. Meanwhile, the NHPC in Bhagalpur is yet to acquire 300 acres of the required 1,179 acres.

Last year, the Union Energy Minister Piyush Goyal had promised that the centre would extend all help to the state government in this regard.