Power station planned for Bastar

Learning a lesson from the eleven-day blackout in Bastar region after Maoist guerrillas blew up power transmission towers early last month, Chhattisgarh government has decided to set up a power plant in the region.

"The power plant will be set up jointly by the state-own Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB) and country's biggest iron-ore exporter and producer""the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC)" a state government official said. The proposal was approved at the meeting of Bastar Development Authority (BDA) held yesterday in Jagdalpur.

The plant will have a power generation capacity of 100 Mw to 200 Mw, the official said, adding that the final decision about the capacity would be taken once the work for designing the project start. Since the demand of power in Bastar region""the hotbed of the Maoist activities""is 80 Mw, the proposed plant will have the capacity more than that, he added.

The proposal to establish a power plant was taken in wake of bitter experience the state government had when the entire region remained without power for eleven days in succession after rebels blew up three power transmission towers near Narayanpur on the night of May 31.

Besides NMDC, Essar and railways also incurred a heavy loss during the blackout as production came to halt in all the industrial facilities in the region. The official said a power plant in the region was the best available option to deal with such situation in future.

The meeting also decided to explore the alternate arrangement to get power supply from neighbouring states of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. During the blackout, all efforts of state government to draw power from the neighbouring states failed due to technical problems.