Mega power project of 2000-MW for Pipavav in Amreli District gets through by Central Government.

In what is being described as a major breakthrough in the Central Government investments in Gujarat, a mega 2,000 MW power project costing about Rs 8,000 crore is proposed to be set up at Pipavav (Amreli District) in Saurashtra.

The Pipavav thermal power project is one of the three such mega projects proposed to be set up in the country in the private sector through the Power Trading Corporation (PTC), which will act as a nodel agency of the Central Government. The other two mega projects proposed to be set up in Krishnapatanam in Andhra Pradesh and Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu.

S. K. Shelat, economic adviser to the chief minister, clarified that Union Power Minister P Kumaramangalam had announced this during his Sunday visit to Surat and Ahmedabad. Besides the PTC mega project, KRIBHCO will be allowed to set up a naphthaLNG-based 650 MW project at Pipavav.

PTC would purchase power from the private sector and would sell it to state grids of the neighbouring participating states. The power, to be generated from the proposed 2,000 MW project, will be made available to consumers at lower rates, since there will be a total exemption of customs duty on plant and machinery to be imported for setting up the project at Pipavav. Besides, indigenous suppliers of equipment will be treated as "deemed exporters" and the project will get the benefit of infrastructure status. The mega power project, for which best quality coal will be imported, was likely to be implemented and commissioned in the next three years.

Part of the implementation of the concept of port-driven development" of Gujarat because of its strategis location on the Saurashtra coast, the project is the second major Central Sector power unit to come up in the state.

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