The country’s largest power producer, NTPC Ltd, today remained optimistic of the super critical 1320 MW Katwa thermal plant in West Bengal.

NTPC chairman Arup Roychoudhury said here today that it was planning to add one more unit of 660 MW capacity to the existing project given the enthusiasm seen from farmers to sell their land.

“Katwa thermal power plant of 1320 MW (660MWx2) is a reality as we already have 550 acres land already in our possession and is fenced. We may put one more additional unit of 660 MW, if we get the additional land we are looking,” on the sidelines of The Bengal Chamber organised environment and energy conclave.

“On September 3, the tender for EPC contract for the project will be opened where 4-5 bidders like BHEL, L&T and others have expressed interest,” he said.

NTPC was aiming for another 300 acres of land of which some 200 acres of land would be acquired directly from the farmers and rest 100 acres was expected to come from state government.

“Farmers are very keen to sell their land given the price we will offer,” the NTPC chief said.

NTPC officials said farmers were keener to sell their land as the offer price which will be around Rs 16.5 lakh per acre against current ruling price of Rs 3 lakh per acre was extremely lucrative for them.

Roychoudhury said the state government will have give formal approval of the land price for acquisition and resolve some formalities in case of coal block linkage it had offered for the project.

NTPC said it was optimistic in generating power from Katwa thermal power plant in the next four years from first unit of 660 MW and another unit in the next six months.

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