Jindal power to plead for its Chhattisgarh project

RAIPUR - Jindal Power will urge the environment ministry to restore the terms of referrence (TOR) for its 2,400 MW thermal power project in Chhattisgarh, the company said Wednesday.

“From the website of MoEF (ministry of enevironment and forests), we learnt that the environment ministry has revoked TOR (terms of reference) for 4X600 MW expansion of JPL power plant in Tamnar. We will make a representation for restoring the TOR,” the company told IANS.

The ministry has revoked the TOR for the project at Tanmar in Raigarh district after it found that the private producer has gone ahead with the construction work without taking the requisite environmental clearances, a state government official said Wednesday.

The ministry has also asked the Chhattisgarh government to initiate action against the company.

In a statement sent by e-mail, Jindal Power said: “TOR has been withdrawn based on misleading and false information that our company will now be putting up the entire power project on 62 hectares whereas TOR was granted to 1041 hectares.”

“As far as directive of MoEF to state government to take action for starting construction of the power plant before grant of environment clearance is concerned, we have to state that the construction of second stacker reclaimer for existing 4×250 MW power plant was actually started as the existing stacker reclaimer was frequently breaking down, as a result we had to stop generation of power from existing 4×250 MW power plant,” the statement added.

“The villagers of that area and some so called NGOs thought that the construction has been started for the new 4×600 MW power plant and they objected to it. On their objection we had stopped construction activities long back,” said the statement.