The Chhattisgarh government on Saturday put a spanner in the expansion plan of Korba power project of Lanco Amarkantak Power Private Limited (LAPPL), a subsidiary of Lanco Group.
The Korba district administration cancelled the public hearing convened Saturday morning to seek environment clearances for expanding the capacity of LAPPL’s power project from 1,920 Mw to 3,240 Mw. The company has set up power station in Pathadi village on the outskirts of Korba city.
The 1920-Mw LAPPL power station has two units of 300-Mw each and two units of 660-Mw each—about 220 km from here. Under the expansion programme, the company had planned to enhance the capacity from 1920-Mw to 3240-Mw by installing forth and fifth unit of 660-Mw each.
“Following villagers strong protest against the expansion plan of LAPPL and the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) ban on the projects in the critically polluted areas (in which Korba falls), the district administration on Saturday cancelled the public hearing,” Regional Officer of Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board (CECB) B S Thakur told Business Standard.
Since the public hearing had been cancelled, the expansion programme of LAPPL had literally stood abandoned, Thakur said, adding that the company cannot apply fresh for convening public hearing again once it had been cancelled. Besides expansion plan, people’s resentment against company for allegedly failing to implement the rehabilitation policy earlier also spilled out in open, the official said.
The public hearing was convened at 11 am. As the proceeding started, villagers joined by political parties’ representatives and activities of non-government organisation (NGO) lodged strong project. The additional district magistrate, Abhay Mishra, winded up the proceeding within 30 minutes and announced that the public hearing had been cancelled. “The state government conducting the hearing was itself illegal as the MoEF had put ban on environment clearances for new project or expansion programme in the critically polluted areas that include Korba till March 31, 2012,” Laxmi Chouhan, director of NGO Sarthak, said. He had submitted an application earlier to the district administration pleading to cancel the hearing but it was ignored, Chouhan said.
