26 May, 2011

Problems in acquiring land and delays in forest clearances have grounded at least 120 power transmission projects in the country. Most of these projects belong to the Power Grid Corporation and state utilities.

Land acquisition or getting the right of way has become a huge problem in implementation of transmission projects. Companies want transmission projects to be exempted from some provisions of the Forest Rights Act of 2006. Power transmission utilities argue that their projects have negligible impact on forests and traditional forest dwellers. They say they are unable to acquire land for laying transmission lines due to protests and agitations by locals in the absence of a policy to compensate them adequately.

Some of the power generation projects that could take a hit due to delay in associated transmission lines are Tata Power’s 4,000 MW Mundra ultra mega power project, Reliance Power’s 4,000 MW Krishnapatnam project, NTPC’s 1,000MW Simhadri expansion project, ONGC’s 700 MW Palatana gasbased project and Damodar Valley Corporation’s 1,000 MW Durgapur and Raghunathpur projects.

Source: Media Reports