BHUBANESWAR In a major relief to the State Government, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Fore..
BHUBANESWAR In a major relief to the State Government, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on Wednesday granted statutory clearance to the coal blocks allotted to the three major thermal power projects of the State.
The MoEF recategorised the coal blocks allotted to the 4,000MW Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP), 1,320MW expansion plan of the Orissa Power Generation Corporation (OPGC) and 1,600 MW power projects of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) from 'no go' to 'go' areas following revision of the
mining plans of the three companies.
"Use of super critical technology in all the three power projects is the other consideration for granting statutory clearance by the Ministry," Union MoEF Minister Jairam Ramesh said in an order passed on Wednesday. The project proponents will bear the cost of regeneration of an open and degraded forest land equivalent to the area of medium density forest diverted, Ramesh said. The proposed UMPP and NTPC power projects will be set up in Sundargarh district while two more units of 660 MW each will be added to the OPGC's Ib Thermal Power Station at Banharpali in Jharsuguda district. Incidentally, Minister of State for Energy Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak on Wednesday met Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and discussed the issue ahead of the meeting convened by the Prime Minister on July 4. During his last visit to Delhi, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had taken up the matter with the Prime Minister and Shinde.
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