NTPC’s 200MW North Karanpura plant heading for revival

The end of deadlock between National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Coal India Limited (CIL) over proposed mega power plant in North Karanpura has led to the hope of fast revival of the project.

The power project was caught in a controversy between two public sector undertakings (PSUs) soon after its foundation stone was laid by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999.

Coal India Limited raised an objection to the project saying there was a huge reserve of coal estimated to be around six billion tonne at the proposed site and NTPC should not be allowed to set up a power plant there.

After several deliberations over the past decade, and intervention of the Centre, the controversy has been almost resolved.
The Centre has decided to allow NTPC to construct the 2000 mega watts (MW) power plant with a condition that it will dismantle the plant after 35 years and handover the land to CIL for mining.

Sources in NTPC said it has also been asked not to develop any township around the power project as it would lead to problems when the plant is dismantled after 35 years.

“A high-level inter ministerial group has also asked NTPC to proceed with its power plant project at North Karanpura coalfields but has asked them to scale down its land requirement by more than 40% to 970 acres.
The company may also scale down the generation capacity to around 1300 mega watts,” said a source.

Till now the company was demanding around 1500 acres of land for the project.

An official of NTPC said, “The end in deadlock has come as a big relief as the company has already invested nearly Rs 250 crore in the project.”

K K Sharma, the executive director of the power company said everyone is waiting for the project to take off at the earliest.

“Union minister for power Jyotiraditya Scindia is closely pursuing the case and we hope that the project will not be delayed anymore,” said Sharma.