Govt hikes land lease limit for grid stations

The Orissa government has decided to increase the land lease limit for construction of grid stations by Orissa Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (OPTCL), which had requested to raise the ceiling as existing limits were not enough for expansions.

For construction of 400 KV grid substation, the land lease cap has been upgraded to 67 acre, from 50 acre earlier. For 200 KV grid substations, OPTCL can avail land lease up to 28 acre and for 132 KV, it would be 15 acre.

According to earlier decision, the state government had capped the land lease amount at 10 acre for 200 KV grid station and 5 acre for 132 KV grid station.

OPTCL had complained that the previous land lease cap was not adequate to construct grid stations and said in case of expansion, the state revenue department was asking the company to pay the extra land prices at market rate.

In its letter to the government, it had said the additional cost incurred in buying land would be passed on to consumers in the form of increased power tariff and hence, had proposed to increase the land limits for 400 KV, 200 KV and 132 KV grid substations to 70 acre, 30 acre and 20 acre, respectively.

The land lease limit was enhanced under the provision of Industrial Policy Resolution, 2001 for OPTCL.

The decision was taken at a meeting attended by officials from industries department, revenue department, energy department and officials from electricity distributing companies.

OPTCL operates about 9,551 Kms of transmission lines at 400 KV, 220 KV, 132 KV levels and 81 substations with highly efficient megavolt ampere (MVA) transformers.