By IANS,
Agra : The Uttar Pradesh government has revived a $1.25 billion power project in the state’s Etah district, some 85 km from this city of the Taj Mahal, to be implemented by a Sino-Canadian venture.
Residents of six villages have promised land for the plant 10 km from Etah.
The memorandum of understanding for the plant was signed three years ago between the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government and Canasia, the Canadian promoter, but has been lying in the cold storage since then.
With Aligarh becoming a new division, and two prestigious projects – the Taj Expressway and an international airport between Greater Noida and Agra – coming up in th state, the power plant has now acquired an element of urgency.
Originally, the generation target was fixed at around 800 MW. This has now been increased to 1320 MW. Another new element is the association of National Electric Equipment Corporation of China.
Locals said the eco-sensitive Taj Trapezium Zone – a radius stretching between 60 kilometres and 100 kilometres around the monument – would at last be free of smoke pollution once there is uninterrupted power supply, as the thousands of diesel generators now in use may not have to be run.
“Though the Dr. S. Vardharajan Committee of the Supreme Court had recommended uninterrupted power supply to the Taj Trapezium, it never materialised as the generation has been far short of demand,” said Foundry Nagar industrialist Mathuresh Kumar.