Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will lay the foundation stone for a 1600 mega-watt thermal power plant at Salboni, entailing an investment of ₹16,000 crore on Monday.
The project by JSW Energy will be the single largest private sector investment in the core sector of Bengal has managed to attract during the 14-year regime of Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.
The chief minister will be accompanied by Sajjan Jindal, chairman of the $24 billion JSW Group, and his son Parth Jindal, JSW Energy joint managing director & CEO Sharad Mahendra, among others.
The 800x2 megawatt power plant will come up on a 1,000 acre plot which was initially leased out to JSW Group for an integrated steel plant. However, the project did not take off for multiple factors. Later, the JSW Group set up a cement manufacturing unit there but it continued to hold close to 3,000 acres land at Salboni.
Jindal had first announced the power plant project at the Bengal Global Business Summit in February. On Thursday, Chief minister Banerjee took a dig at the Opposition who often criticise the Summit for not delivering on promises.
“People complain that the BGBS announcements are not followed up. We have proven them wrong by clearing several projects. Industrialists are regularly coming and projects are flowing, making Bengal an industrial destination,” Mamata said at the state secretariat Nabanna.
Banerjee said the new plant would cater to Bengal’s power demand which she claimed was growing ‘exponentially’.
She also informed that new thermal power plants are going to be set up at Durgapur, Bakreshwar and Santaldih. Moreover, Jindals will set up an industrial park at Salboni, Banerjee added.
Project parameter
JSW Energy will build the power plant in design-build-finance-own-operate mode. While the first phase of 800 MW will be operational in 4 years, the second unit of similar capacity will be commissioned in 5 years. The company emerged the lowest bidder in a reverse auction carried out by the state department of power in 2024.
The coal linkage for the power plant will be provided by Coal India Ltd according to Shakti B(IV) scheme of the central government. Under this scheme, the state government will facilitate the coal linkage for the Jindal power plant from CIL.
In the auction, JSW Energy had offered to sell power cheapest (lowest tariff) among competitors using the linkage coal to the state government. In March, the company signed a power purchase agreement with West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company, which supplies electricity in most parts of the state, to sell power for a period of 25 years.