One of the pet projects of Mulayam Singh as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, five years earlier, was the 7,480-Mw Dadri power project. It was also Reliance Power promoter Anil Ambani's dream project, but for some time now, the project has fallen off the radar of the developer.
Dadri got its initial blessing from Singh in 2003. Later, it ran into a number of troubles. The most significant one being fuel supply. The size of the project was expanded to 3,500 Mw on paper, though. Not much could move on the ground, as gas was supposed to be supplied from the Krishna-Godavari block operated by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries.
A disagreement over gas became a long and bitterly fought court case between the Ambani brothers. After Anil lost the case in the Supreme Court, he drew up plans of yet another gas-based power project, Samalkot in Andhra Pradesh. This time around, closer to the wellhead. The company went ahead and applied for fuel allocation from the government for this project.
So, has Reliance Power abandoned Dadri now? The company gives no definite answer. “We are working on our target of 5,000 Mw by the end of 2012. We might revive Dadri if there is an abundance of gas, but we are not pursuing it now,” the company said. The company did not respond to a questionnaire on the same.
Experts, however, said the possibility of such a large amount of gas being available is close to impossible. After the output of RIL's KG-D6 fell, many old gas utilising units like fertiliser and power plants are facing shortages.
Dadri was also hugely criticised by many experts for inherent flaws in the project design. One of them being the size. While the company called it the largest gas capacity at a single location, experts say its too big to execute. Samalkot, though with 2,400 Mw planned capacity, has taken its place.
The power plant's location at Uttar Pradesh was also another glitch, as huge amounts of gas will have to be transported all the way to the North from the South, where the gas is located.
“It's easier and cheaper to transport power than gas, with huge pipelines,” said an expert.
In addition, land acquisition of the project too led to problems.
In December 2009, the Allahabad high court quashed the state government's move to use emergency powers to buy land for the project.
More projects in UP?
With Singh's party coming back to power, will R-Power bag any more projects in the state? That, too seems impossible, say industry insiders.
“The route of bagging projects by signing memorandum of understanding is now blocked. So, I don't think they might set-up any more projects in the state. Maybe, they can sell power from their projects in other states, to UP,” an industry expert said.
