Govt proposes setting up 1000 MW Turga Pumped Storage project at Purulia

In a reply to a question in the West Bengal Assembly on Wednesday, the state Power Minister, 

Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said that the process for environment and forest clearance is in progress and the construction work is expected to start in 2017.

The estimated cost of the project is Rs 5,200 crores. There is a requirement of around 5000 acres of land for the project.It may be mentioned that the Centre has a scheme called Clean Energy Fund. 

But if the project is above 25 MW then it will not come under the Clean Energy Fund.

Thus, the state government has approached the Centre to remove the cap of 25 MW for Clean Energy Fund.The reason being, Turga Pumped Storage like projects can be funded from the scheme. The matter has also been discussed in the recently held conference in Goa where Piyush Goyal, the union power minister, has assured Chattopadhyay to look into the proposal.

At the same time, the state government is also planning to construct 900 MW Bandu Pumped Storage project in Purulia at an estimated cost of Rs 3,815 crores.

The demand of power in the state has increased to 22,990 MU in the past five years compared to that of 17,594 MU in 2011. The demand of power for the small and medium scale enterprise has recorded an increase of 46.39 per cent in the past five years. In the past five years, 19,582 new industrial connections were given.

To meet the demand, the state government had also taken up steps to increase the power generation. Seventeen EHV sub-stations and “1630 MW generation capacity has been added to the existing system”.There is a scope for further development, as there is a need to set up 31 more EHV sub stations.

Keeping the change in climate in mind, the state government is also giving a major stress in generation of the non-conventional form of power including solar power.

The state government would declare the new solar policy and roof top solar policy soon. The state government would be providing subsidy to 1000 schools if they set up roof top solar power generation units. 

Similar subsidy was given to set up the same in 302 schools earlier. But the generation capacity has to be above 5 KW.