Indiabulls' Amravati power plant lands in court
21 Apr 2011
Following the protests against the Jaitapur nuclear power plant, the thermal power plant being set up in Amravati district by Indiabulls Private Limited seems to be the next large running into trouble. A clutch of petitions filed in the Bombay High Court call for scrapping of the project in view of the water supply problems in the district.
According to numerous petitions admitted by the court, the state government has decided to allocate 87.6 MCM (million cubic metres) of water to the Indiabulls thermal plant in a district, which has seen thousands of suicides by farmers over the years.
On 17 December 2007, the state government granted permission to Indiabulls Private Limited, formerly M/s Sophia Power Company Limited, to set up a 2,640 MW capacity power project involving an outlay of Rs14,000 crore in Amravati, under the Mega Power Policy.
The petitions have been posted for hearing in June by a division bench of justices Ranjana Desai and R G Ketkar.
The petitions state that, "thousands of farmers in Amravati district will be deprived of irrigation as the water for the said project will be diverted from Upper Wardha project".
"Despite vast natural resources, the Vidarbha region is relatively underdeveloped in comparison with Western Maharashtra because of the step-motherly treatment meted out to Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan regions," stated the petitions.