Yashodhar Bangera
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)
Mangalore, May 2: The information culled out by using Right to Information Act has revealed that the meeting held at Bangalore on April 17 had decided to build a coal corridor from New Mangalore Port to Niddodi to facilitate the proposed ultra mega thermal power project there to get uninterrupted coal supply.
There is no doubt that on the line of Udupi Power Corporation Ltd (UPCL) at Nandikoor near Padubidri, Udupi district, Niddodi will also need a fly ash pond. The information that is coming out in trickles has been slowly unmasking the clandestine plan of the leaders and officials alike to bring the plant to Niddodi in secretive manner.
Earlier, a letter addressed by the state chief minister to the union power minister urging him to hasten the process of setting up of the said plant, and the ploy to get UPCL pollution done to use the report thereof in support of the proposed plant at Niddodi, had come into the open. Now, it transpires that a decision to build coal corridor had been taken.
During their May 16 visit to Niddodi, the team of officials had travelled to UPCL and New Mangalore Port. At the port, they discussed the possibility of unloading 35,000 to 40,000 metric tonnes of coal on a daily basis. At the meeting, a ‘water conveyer corridor’ for transporting coal from the port to the plant was proposed. The meeting preferred to bring coal through a 50-metre water corridor by using sea water from near the port, instead of an earlier proposal to use sea water from Mulky, just 15 km from Niddodi, for the purpose. The proposed conveyer system envisages water pipes to be laid underground and above the ground.
At present, discussions on acquiring land for the project are drawing the attention of the concerned, and the issue of building of corridor will be taken up later, it is said. The plant may require over 1,100 acres of land for main plant, fly ash pond, and construction of a township. The corridor also will swallow hundreds of acres of additional land, it is guessed.