Land acquisition to be speeded up for Kovvada nuclear plant

With the uncertainty over bifurcation ending, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited is keen to expedite the land acquisition process for the proposed Kovvada nuclear power park in Srikakulam district once a new government is in place in the successor State of Andhra Pradesh.

“We hope to pour the first concrete by the end of this year or early 2015,” G.V. Ramesh, senior NPCIL official and project director for the Kovvada park, told The Hindu here on Tuesday.

NPCIL would set up six units each of 1,594 MWe to produce nearly 9,600 MWe of nuclear power.

He said the cost details were still being worked out with GE Hitachi, which was providing the technology. But, the price would be more than Rs.7 crore for each MWe.

He said the State government had asked NPCIL to deposit a “token advance” of Rs.200 crore in its account towards payment of compensation for the families affected by land acquisition.

He said around 2,000 families would be affected by acquisition of about 2,000 acres across four villages of Chinna kovvada, Pedda Kovvada, Tekkali and Ramachandrapuram.

The process of corrections and verifications were over after the notification expressing intent of acquisition was published.