Nellore: Collector M V Seshagiri Babu inspects site allocated to Reliance power plant

Nellore: District Collector MV Seshagiri Babu on Wednesday inspected the Coastal Andhra Power Limited at Krishnapatnam proposed by the Reliance Group which has been lying idle for the last 10 years.

The state government had allocated around 2,000 acres to the proposed 4,000-MW Ultra Mega Power Project and it was delayed due to various reasons.

In fact, there has been demand from the farmers to return lands that were previously allocated to Reliance Power. A huge chunk of lands to the tune of 2,000 acre was acquired for the proposed plant at Krishnapatnam and due to various reasons, it failed to come up.

It may be recalled that the then YS Rajasekhara Reddy government had allotted 2,400 acres of land in 2007 to the Coastal Andhra Power Limited (CAPL), a subsidiary of Reliance Power Limited. The power produced by the project was planned to be shared by four states such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. Telangana was included as a beneficiary after bifurcation.

The Reliance Power hadn't shown disinterest directly on the project, but the reasons were the shortage of coal and escalation of costs. It had not submitted even its exit decision to the state government in writing. But the farmers who handed over lands for the plant are yet to get compensation from the government. Even politicos also demanded to return the lands to the original farmers. Rumours also spread that the Reliance Group was in financial doldrums and it would sell these valuable lands for their own interests.