PATNA: The spectre of closure that a thermal power plant in Bihar’s Aurangabad faced due to a sudden non-availability of water disappeared on Wednesday after the district administration and the plant management struck a deal with the agitated local people.
The supply of water to the 250-MW thermal power plant of Bharatiya Rail Bijlee Company Limited (BRBCL) at Nabinagar from the Sone river was cut off by villagers of on Tuesday morning. The residents of Kajran village, who had been displaced by the plant, took the drastic step to press for their demand of jobs in the plant.
With the protesters having forcibly turned off the pumps drawing water from the river, the power plant faced an acute shortage of water and risked shutting down its operations in a day. Electricity generated by this power plant, a 74:26 joint venture of NTPC and Indian Railways, is supplied to the Railways.
“Water supply to the BRBCL plant was restored after remaining cut off for more than 30 hours. There is now no possibility of the power plant’s operations getting affected,” said Aurangabad district magistrate Kanwal Tanuj to The New Indian Express.
At a meeting between senior BRBCL officials and the villagers of Kajran facilitated by the district administration, it was agreed that the plant management would take steps to address the villagers’ concerns in two months. The villagers were asked to submit to BRBCL a list of people from the area already employed at the plant, where about 2,000 people currently work.
The villagers have also alleged that compensation was still unpaid to many people who lost their land for the power project. The district administration asked the aggrieved villagers to provide detailed written accounts of their demands.
“The agitation seems to have been caused by certain anti-social elements in the area. We are in the process of identifying them,” said Aurangabad DSP Paras Nath Sahu.