Clearances For A Small, 100 Mw Power Plant

• Land clearance: Notification in newspapers, no objection from residents; otherwise shift site.
• Site Clearance Committee: In addition to the above.
• Water: If groundwater, you need groundwater clearance; if river, then the water resources ministry.
• Pollution: No objection certificate (NOC) from the pollution control board.
• Environment: NOC from the ministry.
• Fuel: For linkage go to ministry of petroleum.
• Chimney clearance: From the ministry of civil aviation.
• Ports: Storage arrangements for the fuel.
• Railways: To move the fuel from ports to plant, approval from the railways in the form of Fuel Transportation Agreement.
• Techno-economic clearance: From the Central Electricity Authority.

All these clearances don’t come cheap. For an environment clearance, for instance,the independent power producer (IPP) has to carry out an environment study for all thefour seasons. The same for pollution and water. Thus the IPP has to spend time and money.All this comes under "development risk" and lies squarely on the company. To setup a project of this size could take up to four years of development cycle. It could yetnot see the light of day.