CESC wants 1,000 acre land for Jharkhand power plant

KOLKATA: CESC will shortly kick off talks with the Jharkhand government to acquire 1,000 acres in the Dumka district to set up a greenfield 1,000 MW pithead thermal station. The decision comes after the company was officially allocated the Mohuagarhi coal block in the state by the coal ministry earlier this week.

Confirming this, CESC managing director Sumantra Banerjee said: “Since the coal block has been allocated, we can now approach the Jharkhand government for land in a specific location. And since it will be a pithead thermal station, all freight and railway logistics issues would be automatically obviated”.

Once the project receives in-principle nod from the Jharkhand government, the company will in parallel kick off the process of securing the statutory forest and environment clearances. The Mohuagarhi block allocated by the coal ministry has total mineable reserves of 110 million tonnes over a 30-year lifespan. “We are yet to finalise the configuration of the 1,000 MW power station, but the annual coal requirement would be roughly 4 million tonnes,” said Mr Banerjee.

CESC will operate a merchant power station in Jharkhand. This means the power generated will be available to various customers across the country. CESC officials have pegged the project cost at a shade over Rs 4,000 crore at roughly Rs 4 crore per megawatt. “We will shortly start discussions with equipment suppliers, although we are yet to take a call on financing options,” said the CESC managing director.