Land oustees agitation hit coal supply to NTPC Plant

Talcher, July 20 (UNI) Coal supply to the NTPC owned 3000MW Talcher Super Thermal Power Plant at Kaniha came to a grinding halt following an indefinite rail roko stir by hundreds of land oustees at Ambapal village near here today.

About 300 land oustees, eligible under the state rehabilitation policy and categorised as Substantially Affected Persons (SAPs), are waiting for 16 long years to get a job in lieu of their land.

To their utter woe and anger when vacancies came in second stage, NTPC offered them half of the vacant posts only saying that the other half would be filled up by inter-plant transfer, according to NTPC Khatigrasta Praja Samiti.

As NTPC went on implementing the 50:50 policy local oustees have threatened to go for an agitation forcing Angul district authorities to sort the issues between NTPC and local land losers on Monday last.

But the talks failed leading to the blockade of railway tracks causing total stoppage of coal supply to the power plant which has been feeding power to at least 14 Indian states including four Southern states.

Sources said NTPC need about 50,000 tonne of coal daily from Mahanadi Coalfields Limited. At present it has only 7 days stock.

Any shortfall will cause alarm at the plant and will be treated as critical, officials said.

UNI XC-DP KK/SRC LS RS1716