The Punjab government has selected Hyderabad-based G V K Industries Ltd to set up a 500 mw thermal power plant at Goindwal Sahib near Amritsar.
A decision to this effect was taken at a recent meeting of a committee on power in Chandigarh which was presided over by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
The state government had invited global tenders for the proposed Goindwal Sahib thermal power plant. This will be the first power generation station in the state to be built, owned and operated by a private group. The project cost is likely to be around Rs 2,000 crore, a government press release said.
The entire capital cost of the project, as well as the cost of operation and maintenance of the power station, will be borne by the private promoters. The project is expected to be completed in four years.
The Hyderabad-based NRI group has already setup a 210 mw power project in Andorra Prudish.
The state is expected to have surplus power after the completion of the Ranjeet Sagar Dam in Gurdaspur district on river Ravi next September.
On a visit to the dam on Wednesday, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said: The dam will be completed by June 1998 and the two units will start generating 300 mw of power by September.
Work on the dam, which is located at about 200 km from Chandigarh, began about 20 years back. The government has already spent more than Rs 2,400 crore on the construction of dam.
Currently,the state has a power deficit of 100 mw. Badal said: With the completion of the dam, Punjab will not only become power surplus, a chapter of socio-economic growth of the state in the form of development of irrigation, fisheries and tourism will also begin.
The power sector remains the top priority of our government, he added. The Chief Minister said another thermal power plant at Lehra Mohabat, in district Bathinda, will also start generating 420mw of additional power next year.
He said that with the completion of the Ranjeet Sagar Dam and the Lehra Mohabat thermal plant, Punjab will have 1,000 mw of additional power for agriculture, industry and other sectors of development in the state.
