Govt begins work on 5 more mega power projects

The government has commenced preliminary work on five more Ultra Mega Power Projects with a generation capacity of over 4,000 MW each, the pre-budget Economic Survey said Thursday.

"For a UMPP each in Karnataka and Maharashtra, an additional one in Gujarat and two more in Orissa, requisite inputs regarding land availability and water linkage are being examined," the survey said.

The government has so far awarded four UMPPs to successful developers. One such project is being developed by Tata Power at Mundra in Gujarat while three others -- Sasan in Madhya Pradesh, Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Tilaiya in Jharkhand have been bagged by Reliance Power.

All the pre-Request for Qualification activities for the Sarguja UMPP in Chhattisgarh have been completed while the prerequisites for the RFQ have already been put in place for the Sundergarh district project in Orissa, the Survey said.

For the UMPP in Tamil Nadu, the site has been finalised at Cheyyur while Nayunipalli in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh has been decided by the Central Electricity Authority and PFC for another UMPP in the state after Krishnapatnam.