News Detail

Exactly five years after the Mayawati government handed over the 2x 660 MW Karchana power project to Jaypee Associates on 19.02.2009, the UP government has now decided to get the project developed by the state sector utility, Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam.

The decision was taken by the Energy Task Force, headed by chief secretary Javed Usmani. The matter will now be placed before the state cabinet formally for its approval before the state utility starts floating tenders for the project. With this, the government has finally put to rest the tussle over the INR 12,000-crore project in Allahabad, which has been in the thick of controversy and was put up for bidding under the Case II route.

Since coming to power, the Akhilesh Yadav government had reopened the project and invited state sector power behemoth NTPC to take it up after the Jaypee group finally conveyed its unwillingness to develop the project due to hiccups in land acquisition process.

According to sources in the state government, the CM was keen that the power project should come up, especially because the state government had already made arrangements for coal linkage. “Since Karchana is a Case II route project, the state government had to make arrangements for the land and coal linkages. Since some farmers were opposing the project in patches, the project was held up and since then 5 years had elapsed.

The Jaypee group declined to carry out the task and wanted to exit the project. The options before the state government were to either go through the bidding process afresh, which would take at least a year and a half, or hand over the project to the state utility,” the official said, adding that the best part of this decision is that the entire power generated by the project would come to the state as against 90 Percent if a private company developed it.

Source-On Request