VIJAYAWADA | October 20, 2016: The Central government on Wednesday asserted that the Mannavaram power project’s equipment manufacturing plant in Chittoor district would not be shifted to any other place. This was stated by Minister of Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal after a review meeting with Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu in Delhi. The meeting was convened by Mr. Naidu with Mr. Goyal, Minister of Heavy Industries Anant Geete and Chairmen and Managing Directors of the NTPC and the BHEL and senior officials, including those of NTPC BHEL Power Projects Ltd (NBPPL) which is executing the project.Mr. Naidu stressed the need for immediate intervention to generate employment through full-scale operations. He discussed other issues faced by the project. Mr. Goyal said a four-member committee chaired by the BHEL CMD would explore and recommend measures for ensuring sufficient work orders for the project, including through diversification of manufacturing activities, keeping in view the surplus capacity available for manufacturing of turbines, boilers etc.

Mr. Venkaiah Naidu announced that the Ministry of Coal agreed to provide domestic coal linkage from Coal India Ltd. to the 4,000 MW Pudimadaka power project in Visakhapatnam district so as to bring down the cost of supply.

The Coal Ministry has also agreed to positively consider the allocation of alternative coal blocks to AP-GENCO in place of Sarpal-Nupara block that was allocated earlier because of its high cost of mining. Mr. Goyal said tenders would be opened on Thursday for commissioning another 125 MW of solar power generation at the 1,000 MW Kadiri solar photo-voltaic power generation park in Anantapur district.

(Source: http://www.thehindu.com/)