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NTPC plant at Sampur as Colombo wants

COLOMBO: India has finally agreed to locate a 500-MW coal-based plant of the National Thermal Power Corporation at Sampur town in Sri Lanka’s Trincomalee district.

According to reliable sources, New Delhi’s decision was conveyed to the Mahinda Rajapaksa government. Though the two countries signed an agreement in December 2006, there was no unanimity on the plant location.

Sri Lanka identified Sampur, which its military wrested from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in September 2006, though an NTPC team earlier preferred a site near the Indian Oil Corporation oil complex, close to the Trincomalee harbour.

Sri Lanka’s move locate the plant at Sampur triggered a controversy with the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance raising political and environmental objections.

The project, involving an investment of $500 million, is to be implemented by a joint venture company, in which the NTPC and the Ceylon Electricity Board will each hold a 50 per cent stake and which will be funded with a debt equity ratio of 70:30.

For Sri Lanka, this is one of the largest ever infrastructure investments and the project will augment its power capacity by 20 per cent, according to official sources.

But the TNA alleged that there was a hidden political agenda in the project: to permanently evict Tamils from the Muttur east region. It claims that around 30,000 Tamils were forced to leave the southern Trincomalee region into Vaharai when the military launched a major offensive and captured Sampur.

In a media release, TNA parliamentarian from Trincomalee K. Thurairetnasingham slammed the government of Sri Lanka for rushing the project without consulting Tamil representatives. The power plant would have an adverse impact on the livelihood of Tamils in the region, he said.

In another development, a ‘pre-feasibility’ report by the Power Grid Corporation of India on the proposed India-Sri Lanka Electricity Grid Interconnection Project, to lay an undersea line between Rameswaram and Talaimannar, said it could be commissioned within 42 months.

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