Land unavailability short-circuits UP power transmission

Deepa Jainani
Posted: Friday, Jan 01, 2010
Lucknow: Unavailability of land is becoming a bane for the infrastructure development projects in Uttar Pradesh. Similary to the much-hyped 7,480 mw Dadri power project in Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh, the state government's plan to become power surplus is likely to take a set back due to this reason.

The government has made elaborate plans for capacity addition of 10,000 mw by the end of the 11th Plan and augmenting another 8,000 mw by 2014 in the power sector. However, transmitting electricity produced at the power houses will take a hit as land to set up the required infrastructure for the transmission and distribution network is not available.

Uttar Pradesh Power Transmission Corporation, the nodal body for all transmission work, had planned to build around 200 sub-stations of various capacities, ranging from 132 kv to 765 kv for which the Central Electricity Authority has already cleared Rs 22,501 crore for the outlay in the 11th Plan. Out of this, Rs 10,984 crore would be commissioned through the state, while Rs 11,517 crore would be commissioned via public-private-partnership mode.

According to a source, the major hurdle in front of the department's efforts to set up sub stations is land acquisition. "Acquiring land for these sub-stations is proving to be very hard and efforts are on to expedite the process," he said, adding that crisis management teams have been dispatched to the districts where acquisition is proving tricky.

"If the transmission network is not ready simultaneously, the power that we will start generating at our various powerhouses in the next 4-5 years will not be evacuated. As a result, the entire effort of providing power to every house in the state will fail," said the official.

Farmers' unwillingness to part with their land is the reason for the delay of the sub-stations, according to an official. "Even the gram sabha land is unavailable at most places. As a result, we are forced to depend on the farmers. Our targets would be badly effected if we are not able to do something fast," said the official.

It may be mentioned that work on the 500mw Paricha and 500mw Harduaganj extension projects and the 2x500 mw Anpara D project, all in the public sector, is functioning in full swing and is expected to be completed in the next four years. In the private sector, work in Anpara C is also in progress while Reliance.