Ahead of the scheduled commissioning of the first unit of 4×270 MW Bhadradri Thermal Power Station (BTPS) at Manuguru in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district this month, Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TS-Genco) has hit a minor road block with an experts’ committee of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) deferring clearance for transportation of coal by road.
It is likely to cause some delay in commissioning the first unit as well as its commercial operation date (CoD) as the experts committee had sought additional information after deliberating on the TS-Genco’s application for permission for transportation of coal by road at its meeting held on May 28. The Genco had submitted the application online on May 16.
TS-Genco has approached MoEF seeking permission for transportation of coal to the power plant by road instead of rail for a period of three years due to the delay in constructing the proposed railway line to the plant from Manuguru railway station located at a distance of 20.25 km. According to officials, the delay is attributed to time taken for land acquisition.
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Forest land
The dedicated railway line and siding for BTPS in the alignment proposed requires 171.19 acres land, including 64.10 acres of forest land and 107.09 acres of patta land. Officials who attended the experts committee meeting told the panel that preliminary notification proposals for acquisition of patta land by Sub-Collector of Bhadrachalam was under process and the proposal for clearance of 64.10 acres forest land was with the Conservator of Forests at Kothagudem for identification of compensatory afforestation land.
The Genco has sought three years time for the alternative mode of coal transportation, by road, keeping in mind the fact that even after taking the possession of land it could take about two-and-a-half years to lay the new railway line along with siding.
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It is learnt that one of the main reasons for the delay in the process of land acquisition was sequential elections for the State Assembly, Lok Sabha and rural local bodies.
Generation of power in all the four units of the power plant requires 13,000 tonnes of coal a day and it has to be transported from Manuguru opencast mines of Singareni Collieries Company Ltd, located at about 17 km distance. It is assessed that about 655 trucks have to transport coal everyday to meet the demand.
While seeking a revised traffic assessment report for considering the TS-Genco’s plea, the experts committee pointed out that the report prepared by environmental consultant did not provide any reliable information on the width and nature of the road, load-bearing capacity of the road and details of baseline data such as air quality, noise quality and traffic monitoring locations and its quality collected from various locations.
The panel sought revised report incorporating details of roads, traffic sufficiency and load bearing capacity, details of modelling parameters and results, details of villages, habitations and forests and impact of proposed traffic on them.
Besides, it wanted the revised report with milestones for completing all activities of railway line and siding with time lines.