In a jolt to West Bengal’s industrial sector, NTPC is understood to have dropped or frozen its plan to set up a 1,320 Mw power plant at Santaldih. The project might have seen an investment of at least Rs 8,000 crore in the state, had it happened.
A top official from a Bengal state power utility company said, “The company (NTPC) has dropped the project and is not keen to take it forward.” During his visit to Kolkata late last year, NTPC chairman and managing director Arup Roychoudhury had indicated the cental government-owned company was keen to take over the Santaldih project of the West Bengal Power Development Corporation (WBPDCL) and set up two new units of 660 Mw there.
This comes weeks after Business Standard reported that unwillingness to acquire land from those unwilling to sell might cause a hindrance for a Rs 9,600-crore project for a 1,600-Mw unit by NTPC in Katwa. However, unlike Katwa, here land is not an issue for the country’s largest power generating company, as WBPDCL already has 980 Mw capacity at Santaldih, one of the oldest power projects in the state. There are four units of 120 Mw and two units of 250 Mw each.
Asked to confirm on Santaldih, a top NTPC official said, “We are still considering the project but we want to take one project at a time. The new government should settle the problems with the Katwa project first.”
Last year, NTPC had taken over the Katwa project from WBPDCL, which had acquired 387 acres of the 1,035 acres required for the project. However, the new Mamata Banerjee-led government has asked NTPC to set up the 1,600 Mw unit in less than 600 acres of land, due to its unwillingness to acquire land.