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| ENERGY HOPE |
Patna, July 27: The central government today accepted Bihar’s long-pending demand for setting up a 4,000MW ultra power project in the state to make it self-reliant in the energy sector.
Following the Centre’s in principle nod for setting up a thermal power project, a high-level technical team comprising officials from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and Power Finance Corporation (PFC) Ltd visited the state today.
The officials also conducted a detailed study of the state’s topography and available resources with the help of satellites.
The central team, comprising CEA director P.D. Shival, secretary M.S. Puri, chief engineer Arun Kumar Jain, along with PFC vice-chairperson R.K. Shahi and advisor D.K. Gilhotra also met the principal secretaries of the departments of energy, revenue and land reforms, water resources, Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) chairperson and Bihar Power Infrastructure Company (BPIC) officials in the state capital.
“Any power project above 4,000MW capacity is considered as an ultra power project. It requires 2,400 acre land and 120 cusecs water availability,” BSEB spokesperson H.R. Pandey told The Telegraph.
He added: “BPIC has been entrusted the job of preparing the detailed project report keeping in mind the easy availability of land, water and coal linkage after consulting with various state departments. The company is expected to submit its proposal within a month to the state government.”
The expert team would visit the state again to conduct inspection for site selection. Sources said that the project would be set up at a place from where coal linkage would be easily available through railways, as such a mega plant would require coal in huge volume.
If established successfully, the ultra power project would help the power-deficient state in meeting its energy requirement.
At present, Bihar has negligible daily power generation of about 100MW against its energy requirement of 3,000MW during peak hours in summer. The state meets its energy requirement from central sector allocation from which it is supposed get 1,833MW. (It gets around 1,000-1,300MW on an average). Bihar also purchases 500MW from the open market. Patna gets 450MW of power supply daily against the requirement of 600MW in summer.
