Texmaco Infrastructure & Holdings Ltd has sought permission from the West Bengal Government for setting up a logistics hub and food processing park at Sankrail - 10 km west of the city.

According to S.K. Poddar, Chairman, Texmaco Infrastructure “possesses” 141 acres of land there.

“But the State Government has issued an acquisition notice for the land. We have got a stay order from the Calcutta High Court,” he said after the company’s AGM here on Wednesday.

“I have personally met the State’s Commerce and Industry Minister, Partha Chatterjee, and requested him to look into the matter. We need find out ways to sort out legal tangle over the land”, the company Chairman said.

Mini hydel projects

According to company secretary A.K. Vijay, an independent consultant has placed the combined project cost – for the logistics hub and food processing park - at around Rs 400 crore.

Texmaco Infra has also planned to raise the capacity of the existing 3 MW mini hydro power project at Neora in Darjeeling district to 9 MW.

“We are planning to set up a 6MW new unit upstream Neaora river at an estimated cost of around Rs 45 crore”. The company has started preliminary work on the development of Neora Stage II, which is located a few kilometres from the current plant.

The project evacuated 55.47 lakh units of power in the year 2011-2012 against 48.95 lakh units in 2010-11. The entire power generated was sold to the West Bengal State Electricity Board. The generation was lower than expected due to lower availability of water in the lean season and excessive deposition of silt in the desilting chamber. The continued problem of high voltage transmission line of SEB and breakdown of MIV of Unit 3 were other bottlenecks.

Based on the experience in implementing the Neora project, Texmaco Infra is expanding its activities in hydro power sector.

The company is also considering participation in tenders for setting up of hydro power projects in Meghalaya.

jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in

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