Union minister of state for power, coal and new & renewable energy Piyush Goyal on Thursday laid down the foundation stone of a 1,980MW thermal power plant in Ghatampur. Goyal said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that every household in country would be provided electricity by 2019. “Centre had allocated Rs 70,000 crore for free power distribution to BPL card holders in UP. The Central government aims to provide electricity to each and every household in the country by 2019 instead of the earlier target of 2022,” he said. Goyal said that there have been record supply of power in villages in the last two years. The area (Ghatampur) was chosen to benefit people of Kanpur and Bundelkhand regions.
The power plant is scheduled to begin in 2020. Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd and Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Nigam had formed a joint venture for the power plant. The plant is proposed to come up in an area of 2,500 acres of land. It will use 80 cusecs of water which will be provided by the irrigation department from the Fatehpur canal. Former Union coal minister and Congress MP from Kanpur Sriprakash Jaiswal had been pursuing the project for a long time. The project was conceptualised during Mayawati regime but could not take off.
Source:TOI
