The Hindu : Investment board approves NLC expansion project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Investment board approves NLC expansion project

By Our Special Correspondent

NEYVELI, MARCH 6. The Public Investment Board has approved a Rs. 4,200-crore project for expansion of mine-II and the thermal power station-II at Neyveli, S. Jayaraman, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Neyveli Lignite Corporation, said today.

The project proposal ought to go through the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, he said and hoped that it would be cleared by May.

The Centre aimed adding an additional capacity of over one lakh MW of power generation in the next 10 years. ``The NLC would not lag behind in getting a major chunk of the projects,'' he hoped.

If opportunities and freedom were given, the NLC could achieve its goals and excel in performance.

Mr. Jayaraman was speaking at the commissioning of a modern sewage plant on the NLC premises here.

A.R. Ansari, Director (Planning and Projects), said the NLC had eight projects in hand. It was planning to diversify from lignite-based power plants to coal and residue-based ones. The possibility of setting up gas-based power plants was also being explored.

Of the proposed addition of power generation, 60,000 MW would be hydro-based and 6,500 MW lignite-based.

K. S. Anandan, Director (Mines), said 5-10 per cent of the total allocation of Rs. 2,000 crores for mines expansion was set apart for environment protection. Efforts were made to reduce the quantity of groundwater being pumped out of the mines.

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