State says no to Haripur nuclear plant project
The state government is going to scrap the proposed nuclear plant project at Haripur. This was announced by state power minister Manish Gupta in the Assembly during the question hour. The scraping of the project was one of the poll promises of Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.
The nuclear project had triggered a major controversy. Although the Centre had given its clearance to the project and the Left Front government had located land for it which was to be set up in the coastal area of Haripur in East Midnapore district, roughly 160 km from Kolkata, the local people were strongly opposed to it. The project which included installation of six nuclear reactors was to be set up in collaboration with Russia.
The nuclear plant which was to generate 10,000 MW of electricity would have required at least 10,000 acres of land. The acquisition of land would have resulted in eviction of a large number of local people most of them fishermen and farmers.
To stop the project, the local people formed a resistance committee which received immediate support from the Trinamul Congress. Claiming that the previous government had misled the people about the project, the power minister on Wednesday ruled out any possibility of setting up of nuclear plants either in Haripur or anywhere else in the state.
In reply to a question as to how would the government then address the growing demand for power, Mr Gupta said it would purchase power if required. “The present power demand is 6,500 MW while only 5,525 MW is generated in the state. We are meeting the shortfall by procuring power from the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd,” the state power minister informed the House.
Post new comment