RITES ltd — the public sector Engineering Consultancy company specialising in the domain of transport infrastructure — will soon start the process of building railway bridges for connecting the rail network to proposed plant site of NTPC ltd’s upcoming 3x800 MW super thermal power project at lara in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh.
The Railway project would be taken up on what is termed technically as the ‘Merry Go Round’ (MGR) system, which comprises of a closed-circuit dedicated Rail Transportation System between the production and consumption points of the power plant, officials stated.
Notably, RITES has already commenced work for building ‘in-plant’ yard infrastructure for the Railways in the proposed plant site under construction.
The power to be generated by upcoming NTPC ltd’s Super Thermal Power Project (STPP) at lara will be supplied to Chhattisgarh, Goa and Maharashtra States, officials stated. The project is most likely to go on stream by March 2017 .
Significantly, NTPC the largest power utility of the country recorded highest single day generation of 733.12 MUs, the highest so far in this Financial Year from its 18 coal based, 7 gas-based, 8 solar and Hydro power stations on August 27, 2015. The Declared Cumulative Capability of the stations was 91.10 per cent and Plant load factor ( PlF) of 86.34 per cent on the day.
During financial year 2014-15, NTPC Group contributed 25 per cent of total electricity generated in India with 16 per cent share of Country’s total installed capacity as on March 31, 2015.
NTPC recorded Gross generation of 241.261 BUs (stand-alone) in FY 2014-15 registering a growth of 3.42 per cent. Plant load Factor (PlF) of NTPC’s coal stations was 80.23 per cent against national average of 64.46 per cent. Two stations recorded more than 90 per cent PlF.
All NTPC stations achieved Plant Availability of or above 83 per cent. Four coal stations of NTPC featured among the top 10 stations of the country in terms of PlF in FY 2014-15.
Notably, the Centre has signed a Memorandum of Understanding each with the states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh for critical coal connectivity projects to improve transportation of coal, officials informed.
Coal production in Chhattisgarh stood at 115.19 million tonnes (MT) during 2014-15 ( provisional), officials stated.
This was in comparison to 110.14 million tonnes (actual) coal produced in the State during the previous year. The State had already produced 27.857 million tonnes of coal during the period April to June 2015 (provisional), officials stated.
As per Annual Plan document 2015-16 of Union Ministry of Coal, the annual target for overall coal production for 2015-16 has been fixed at 700 million tonnes.
As action plan has also been drawn by Coal India ltd. in this regard to achieve production of 1000 Million tonnes by 2019-20, officials stated. Agreement for World Bank loan of US $1,100 million for Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) (Phase-2) have also been signed, officials stated.
Meanwhile, under the guidance of District Collector Alarmelmangai D, the State Employment Office, livelihood College and labour Departments have jointly launched a campaign to connect youths of villages affected by NTPC’s lara project with employment opportunities by sharpening their skills.
The district administration had recently held a camp in village Pussore and collected bio-data and applications from at least 180 youths.
In next phase of the drive, the district administration will soon call these youths for counselling and collect information of their interest. Subsequently, these youths will be provided training in different trades free of cost so that they could easily be absorbed in different industrial units and NTPC lara as per the demand, officials stated.
To collect details about vacant posts in different trades of industrial units in the region, the district administration recently held a meeting which was attended by representatives of different industrial units and contractors.