Patna, July 18: The Nabinagar thermal power plant, coming up on around 3,000 acres spreading across Barun and Nabinagar blocks in Aurangabad district, around 130km southwest of Patna, is set to miss the 2017 deadline for its commissioning.
The delay in land acquisition has turned out to be the main hurdle in the construction of this project, which in the first phase entails the setting up of three units of 660MW each.
The project is a joint venture (50:50) of the Bihar government and National Thermal Power Corporation under which Nabinagar Power Generating Company (NPGC) was incorporated in 2008.
The project would help the state get 69.34 per cent of the power it generates. After the commissioning of the first plant (660MW), Bihar would get around 458MW of additional power over its existing supply.
Against its estimated requirement of around 3,500MW, the state gets around 2,200MW on an average from the central quota against its total quota of 2,810MW.
Moreover, the state gets around 200MW of power from Kanti thermal plant and buys 400MW to 600MW of power from the open market. An additional 450MW from the first plant of NPGC would be a big boost for the power-starved state.
"Construction of 6km railway track from the nearest railway station, Ankorha, up to the power plant is a must, as it would be used to carry the coal meant for the power plant. Land for the same, however, has not yet been handed over to us," said a senior NTPC official closely associated with the day-to-day progress of the project.
The power plant has coal linkage with North Karnapura Coalfield in Jharkhand.
The official also pointed out that land meant for setting up a 3-km water channel that would bring water to the plant from Sone river and another storm drain channel that would take out used water from the power plant back to the river, too, had not been handed over to NPGC.
The aforesaid works have a gestation period of around 30 months and even if the land is handed over to NPGC this month, the basic infrastructure is missing, without which power plant cannot be commissioned before January 2018. According to the original plan, NPGC had to commission the first plant of the first phase of the project by mid-2017.
While NPGC has already awarded work for water channel construction through competitive bidding, it is keeping the bidding work for railway tracks laying pending owing to unavailability of land.
"Hardly 200 to 300 acres would be required for these works but delay on this front is bound to delay commissioning of the first plant," said the official.
As far as construction work within the premises of the plant site is concerned, the work is going on but owing to some plots, which lie within the project site and have not yet been handed over to NPGC, the work has failed to gain momentum.
"Work is going on simultaneously for construction of a cooling tower, the switch yard, the boiler and the chimney among other things, so that more than 20 per cent of the work has been completed. If minor niggles on the land front within the project premises are addressed, we would certainly complete the work well in time," said a technical official of NTPC.
Law Kumar Singh, the president of Kisan Mazdoor Visthapit Samiti, an organisation spearheading the cause of landowners, said he was hopeful of an amicable solution to the land acquisition problem for the remaining portion of land for the project.
"Chief minister Nitish Kumar has been very sensitive about the cause of landowners and his intervention led to payment of enhanced compensation to the owners. We are hopeful that the same would be done with the remaining landowners as well," he said.
Replying to a query about the likely stand of the state government on this issue, energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said the government was seized of the matter and the land acquisition process would be compl-eted soon.
"Nabinagar power plant is one of our top priority projects and we would ensure its completion without much delay," he said.
