Bihar to seek speeding up of work for nuclear power plant

Power-starved Bihar has requested the central government to speed up the work for setting up a nuclear power plant in the state's Nawada district, officials said Friday.

"Bihar will request the centre to speed up work for setting up of a nuclear power plant in Rajauli in Nawada, about 150 km from Patna. Chief Secretary A.K.Sinha has directed officials concerned to write to the Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) and the central government in this regard," said an official in chief minister's office.

A high-level meeting chaired by Sinha was held here Thursday to finalise the setting up of a nuclear plant in the state.

"Bihar is fully ready to set up a nuclear power plant. The government has already identified land and cleared water supply for it," said state Energy Secretary Sandeep Poundrik.

He said that government has already earmarked more than 3,000 acres of land for this purpose and got the clearance for supply of water from river Ganga to the proposed plant.

Earlier the government had proposed to supply water to the plant from the nearby Phulwaria reservoir but that failed to impress the NPCIL.

According to officials, NPCIL would set up a nuclear power plant of 1,400 MW with two units of 700 MW each.

"A team of NPCIL has visited the proposed site early this year," officials said.

The project was mooted in 2007 but failed to progress due to one or the other hurdles. Initially, the state government had sought setting up of a 2,800 MW power plant with four units of 700 MW ,but it was later reduced to half by the NPCIL.

The power situation in Bihar is very bad as the state is totally dependent on the central grid for electricity supply.