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Puducherry gets licence for mining coal from Naini in Orissa

PUDUCHERRY: The Central Government has given a coal block in Naini area of Orissa to the Union Territory of Puducherry to mine coal and produce electricity.

Addressing presspersons here on Monday, Minister for Electricity, Industries and Agriculture V. Vaithialingam said the coal block approximately had 250 million tonnes of coal, which would last for 40 years.

“It is a public-private partnership. We had applied to the Centre six months ago and they have given the license to the Government for mining. The investment will be around Rs. 7,500 crore but the Government will not invest anything.

The Tamil Nadu-based company J.R. Power, will have to pay royalty for the coal that they will use and the Government will also get an income from the electricity that is generated,” he said. The project is expected to commence in another five years time and will have a capacity to produce 1500 Mega Watts of electricity.

Mr. Vaithialingam said at present the Union Territory was drawing power from Tamil Nadu, NLC and Ramagundam and was producing 33 MW at Karaikal. “There has been a phenomenal increase in demand for electricity. The demand is 10 times that of what we had earlier. In five years our projected requirement would be around 700 MW and presently our capacity is 400 MW.”

“We have sought a loan of nearly Rs. 3,000 crore from the Rural Electrical Finance Corporation of which Rs. 2,500 crore would be towards power generation, Rs. 150 crore stabilise distribution and Rs. 100 crore for transmission. They have assured to help us.” The Minister also said the Government proposed to set up a 500 MW gas power plant at Yanam and that would also be under a public-private partnership.

He also announced that for the first time since its beginning in the 1970s the Perunthalaivar Kamaraj Krishi Vigyan Kendra had been selected to receive the Best KVK Award at the national level. Mr. Vathialingam said the award carried a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh and that it would be presented some time in November.

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