Power punch: Energy department officials at the news meet in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Jan. 20: Amid reports that National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), might back track on some of its power projects in the state due to a delay in land acquisition process, the state government today stated there is no word from the Navratna thermal power company to back out from Bihar projects.

“There are no such reports (of NTPC backing out from the power projects proposed in Bihar). The state government has not received any information in this connection,” state’s energy department’s principal secretary Ravikant told journalists here today.

Asked about peoples’ agitation against land acquisition for NTPC Nabinagar project, Ravikant said: “The land of around 960 acres on which people are agitating actually belongs to the state government. The matter is now with the revenue department, which has to transfer the lands to the district administration so that it can hand the land to the joint venture of the Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) and the NTPC.”

The principal secretary, however, admitted the disruption caused by these incidents, but exuded confidence that things would be sorted out soon.

The people, particularly farmers, who have been protesting the acquisition of their land for the setting up of the 1320MW (2 units of 60MW) Nabinagar power plant in the Naxalite-hit Aurangabad district, indulged in vandalism at Akura railway station. The mob set the engine of a passenger train on fire.

BSEB and NTPC have formed a 50:50 joint venture to create a new identity Nabinagar Power Generating Company Limited (NPGC) to set up the 1320MW power plants for which purchase power agreement was signed on January 5 in the presence of energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav.

These two super thermal power plants would be in addition to the three units of 660 MW being built by NPGC at Nabinagar taking the total power generation to 3300MW of electricity by the end of 2015. Out of 3300 MW, Bihar would get 75 per cent of the power generated from the Nabinagar super thermal plant as its share.

Against the total requirement of around 2,832 acres for thermal projects in Nabinagar, government has acquired 1,900 acres of private lands and now the process was on to acquire 960 acres of government land.