The state government is negotiating with the Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd (NLC), the Tamil Nadu based Central PSU, to set up a 1,980 MW coal-based thermal power plant.

An official of the UP Power Corporation said a joint venture has been proposed with a 50:50 participation of the NLC and UP government. The NLC has identified two sites for the proposed power plant and the logistics are being evaluated. The government has given an in-principal approval for the allotment of 2,500 acres and 800 cusecs water for the power project. There, however, are several issues that remain to be sorted out, the official said.

AR Ansari, the chairman of the NLC, had recently visited Lucknow to meet the officials of the UP Power Corporation Ltd and UP Thermal Power Generation Corporation Ltd. Earlier, the NLC suggested Fatehpur, located on Delhi-Kolkata rail trunk route, as the proposed site. Later, they said the Union coal minister Shriprakash Jaiswal wanted the project to be shifted to Kanpur. Jaiswal is the parliamentarian from Kanpur.

“The UP government has no reservations over the location of the project,” said an official of the UPPCL. “If the NLC has some other ideas, then the state government will move ahead for setting up the project under PPP model.”

The government, however, has reservations over the latest proposal of the NLC of hiking its equity to 51 per cent.

“This is not acceptable, since in that case, the JV will become a Central PSU and UP’s share of power will be only 40 per cent, while the share of the state will be as high as 90 per cent if the JV has equal partnership of 50:50 between the UP government and the NLC,” said an official of the UPPCL. “We will put up this issue before the energy task force headed by the state chief secretary,” said Navneet Sehgal, CMD of the UPPCL. “The Memorandum of Understanding with the NLC is pending with the law department for approval”.

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