The Gidderbaha thermal plant by NTPC, which was expected to come up in Gidderbaha, Muktsar district of Punjab, has been dropped, due to land acquisition hurdles.

The Muktsar district administration has cancelled the procedure for land acquisition for the same. NTPC was looking forward to setting up a 2,640 MW thermal plant having four units, at Gidderbaha.

On 7 October 2010, NTPC, the government of Punjab, and Powercom signed an MoU for the same. A power purchase agreement (PPA) was also signed on 22 December 2010, according to which, Unit-I of the plant was to be commissioned by 31 March, 2015.

On 8 February 2010, the Punjab government issued a notification for acquiring 1,998 acre of land in the Gidderbaha subdivision under the Land Acquisition Act, as per which  the sale / purchase of land in these villages had come to a halt.

Later, the district administration issued a notification on 8 February 2011, under which 1,130 acre of land of 150 farmers in Theri village, 162 acre of land owned by 100 farmers in Bababniyan village and 706 acre land of 250 farmers in Ghagga village were to be acquired for the project.

The relief amount, which was not announced, was to be declared within two years of the notification.

Later, the state government displayed great interest in power projects from private sectors and paid no interest to the Gidderbaha project. Also, NTPC had not evinced any interest in pursuing the Gidderbaha project as the coal linkage was not allocated for the project and it had to be dropped.

Related Link:
Project profile