Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Plant
First unit to be commissioned by Dec
Raman Mohan
Tribune News Service

Hisar, February 2
The first unit of the 1200 MW Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Plant, under construction at Khedar, near here, would be commissioned on schedule by December this year.

Ashok Lavasa, financial commissioner and principal secretary (power) and chairman, HPGCL, told TNS that about 60 per cent work had been completed. The first unit of this mega project would be commissioned before December this year. The second unit would go on stream before March 2010. The synchronisation of the first unit was planned during September.

He said so far Rs 1,439 crore had been spent on this project against total engineering, procurement and construction cost of Rs 3,775.43 crore.

Major construction activities like boiler and turbine erection, construction of cooling towers, chimney and 400-KV switchyard were going on as per schedule or ahead of schedule. The cooling towers of the project would be the tallest in the country with a height of 173 m, out of which casting of more than 168 m had already been completed in the case of unit-1 and 82 m in the case of unit-2. The height of the chimney of this project was 275 m and it was the tallest structure of the project.

Lavasa has asked officers of the irrigation and the public orks department to expedite the construction of the water inlet channel before the middle of May this year to enable the authorities to complete the tests for commissioning of the plant. He also asked the Haryana State Road & Bridges Corporation to expedite the construction of the barracks meant for the Central Industrial Security Force and the residential accommodation for the employees.

The construction work of this 1200 MW mega project was awarded on January 29, 2007, to Reliance Infrastructure Limited on turnkey basis. A green-field project of this capacity takes at least 39 to 42 months for commissioning. However, for this project an aggressive commissioning schedule of 35 and 38 months has been envisaged which is the shortest commissioning schedule in the country for such a large project.

The authorities are further targeting a best effort schedule of 34 and 36 months for early availability of power from these units. This is the first project in northern region to be awarded mega project status with attached benefits under the mega project policy of government of India. This has resulted in the reduction of project cost and inter alia lower cost of generation and tariff. With the commissioning of these two units, 288 lakh additional units per day will be available to Haryana.

A colony for operation and maintenance staff having 417 residences and other non-residential buildings is under construction.