West Bengal industry minister Partha Chatterjee today said, the state government expected work in DVC's Rs 10,000 crore second phase of Raghunathpur thermal power plant in Purulia to resume in a day or two.
"We had a meeting with the DVC chairman R N Sen and local residents and discussed the contentious issues. We think construction work will resume in a day or two," Chatterjee said here, barely two days after the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) issued a letter threatening to shift the project from the state.
Sen, who was present in the meeting, said the discussions were fruitful and DVC had no intentions to shift the project from the state.
DVC had written to the Purulia district magistrate stating all facts about the delay in implementing the project and said, if necessary action was not taken by the state administration, the company would be left with no other option than to shift the Rs 10,000 crore project from Raghunathpur.
Chatterjee said there were some eight demands of the villagers, of which around four could be met easily.
He also offered an alternate route for the main water supply pipeline to the project, if the present route posed problems with the villagers.
DVC has not been able to commence generation from the first phase of the 1200 MW (600 MW X 2) project due to lack of water and ash pond.
"Construction of the second phase of the 1320 MW (660 MW X 2) project cannot commence unless we excavate 20 lakh cubic feet of soil and complete the ash pond, but we are unable to work due to ongoing agitations," DVC officials said.
The villagers' representatives had blamed DVC for not carrying out adequate CSR activities in the area.
DVC could not progress with the 10 km water supply pipeline as it was forcibly stopped by local residents since October 21 and for the ash pond since June.
