Games power plan hits Koderma stalemate

The Koderma Thermal Power Project (KTPP), which was supposed to contribute to the power supply for the Common Wealth Games has failed to take off on account of land acquisition problems. Set up to supply 500 MW of power to Delhi, the projects' executing agency, the Damodar Valley Corporation, has drawn up a contingency plan to draw power from other plants to meet the requirement.

The project, located near Koderma town, needed 250 acres of land for constructing a water body and nearly 75 acres of this land was already settled in favour of the DVC. But the owners of the rest of the land were not ready to part with their land leading to the project getting stuck midway. "In the given situation, we have no alternative. We have to divert power to meet the shortfall," DVC's Chief Engineer G N Singh, who is in charge of the KTPP, told The Indian Express.

In 2007, the DVC had entered into an agreement with the Delhi government to supply 2500 MW power for the Games. Subsequently, the agreement was amended so that Delhi was to get 2000 MW from DVC. The agreement was reached after the DVC's proposals — envisaging the build and expansion of three projects in Jharkhand and West Bengal — were cleared by the Union Ministry of Energy.

While two of DVC's projects - Mejia in West Bengal's Bankura district and Chandrapura in Jharkhand's Bokaro district with are ready to be commissioned, the Koderma plant has put a spoke in the wheel. The PSU's plan of building two units of 500 MW capacity each in Jharkhand's Koderma districts have run into trouble. "We are sure to commission one of these units before the games begin. But the second unit has got stuck mainly due to non availability of land for its pond," said Ashok Kumar, DVC's area manager.

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