The $24 billion JSW Group on Monday kicked off a 1,600 megawatt (Mw) power plant at Salboni in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal — a project that had been waiting in the wings for more than a decade and a half.
The foundation stone for the upcoming ~16,000 crore ultra supercritical thermal power plant was laid by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the presence of JSW group chairman Sajjan Jindal, JSW Foundation chairperson Sangita Jindal, and JSW Cement and JSW Paints managing director Parth Jindal.
The power plant will be the largest greenfield plant from the JSW Energy stable and the biggest thermal power project by the private sector in West Bengal.
Chief Minister Banerjee described the foundation stone-laying as a “big moment” while Jindal said the power plant was his “dream project”.
“Bengal needs more and more power. They (JSW) have plans for two more units,” Banerjee said.
The project is expected to create direct and indirect jobs.
Jindal said that the land at Salboni belongs to the farmers of the area.
“You will benefit from the work that happens here, the next generation will also benefit,” he said addressing the gathering.
The power plant has been a long time coming.
The 1,600 Mw plant was part of an integrated steel and power complex conceived during the Left Front regime led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
The steel plant was to have a capacity of 10 million tonnes (mt). Bhattacharjee had laid the foundation stone for the project in 2008.
Jindal recalled during a media interaction later: “Back in 2008 when the land was acquired by Buddhababu for us, it was in the middle of the Singur problem. And then, Nandigram also happened. But everything went off well here.”
The steel plant, however, did not take off due to want of raw material linkages, primarily the coal block deallocation.
But in 2018, JSW Cement set up a cement plant, which was inaugurated by Chief Minister Banerjee.
After a wait of 15 years, the foundation stone for the power plant has been laid, Jindal said.
Model industrial park
Alongside the power plant, Chief Minister Banerjee also laid the foundation stone for JSW Industrial Park, which will be spread over 2,000 acres with plug-and-play infrastructure.
Jindal said that the target was to bring high-quality industries to the park.
“After the US-China spat, many Korean and Japanese industries that are in China and export to the US, but cannot, are looking for a home for themselves.
"We are going to attract them, that is my main target.”
On potential industries, he said, “could be electronics”. But the possibilities were huge, he pointed out.
There are so many things happening in China — from refrigerators, washing machines to transformers, he added.
The JSW Group has about 4,400 acres in Salboni.
Of this, the requirement for the power plant is to the tune of 1,000 acres.
The cement plant uses about 600 acres.
With the power plant and upcoming industrial park, Jindal would still have about 800 acres of unutilised land at Salboni.
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