Two days after Reliance Power annulled the power purchase agreement with power procurers from the Tilaiya ultra mega power project (UMPP) over the undue delay in land acquisition, power minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said that the state government had only acquired 20% of the required land for the plant which had not been handed over to the developer.
Replying to a question in Parliament, Goyal said that out of total required land, 470 acres of private land had been acquired by Jharkhand, but the physical possession of the land was yet to be handed over to Reliance Power.
On Tuesday, RPower announced its withdrawal from the Tilaiya UMPP, one of the three UMPPs it had won in a tariff-based competitive bidding in 2007, citing a delay of over 5 years on part of the state government to hand over land required for the project. The Jharkhand government expressed surprise over the development and said that most hurdles in acquiring land had been resolved and the same was conveyed to the developer.
Updating on the status of other UMPPs, Goyal said that Reliance Power had stopped work at the proposed UMPP in Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh citing a new regulation of coal pricing in Indonesia. The coastal UMPP was to be fed from imported Indonesian coal.
Among the 12 other proposed UMPPs, fresh bids for projects in Odisha and Tamil Nadu would be issued this fiscal, Goyal said. The bids for two UMPPs were cancelled last year due to a lukewarm response from the private sector. He further said that rest of the proposed UMPPs are at early stages of development.
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