A meeting was convened under the chairmanship of Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to facilitate expeditious decision on development of Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) in Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. The meeting at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi was attended by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram; Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj; Science & Technology Minister Kapil Sibal; Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who are all members of the Empowered Group of Ministers on UMPPs.

Minister of State for Power & Commerce, Jairam Ramesh and Member (Power), Planning Commission was also present. The state governments were represented by Minister of Energy, Tamil Nadu; Minister of Power, Karanataka and Minister of Energy, Maharashtra . In addition, senior central and state government officials including the representatives of Chhattisgarh and Orissa also participated in the discussions.

The meeting had been called to expedite decisions in respect of five more UMPPs in the backdrop of substantial progress already having been achieved for four projects at Mundra, Sasan, Krishnapatnam and Tilaiya under this Central Government initiative.

It was noted with satisfaction that all three of the UMPPs awarded so far (Mundra in Gujarat , Sasan in Madhya Pradesh and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh) had now indicated substantial preponement of their commissioning schedules. It is expected that it would now be possible to commission a few units, totaling about 3000 MW within the 11th Plan itself as opposed to the 12th Plan.

There was also general appreciation of the progress achieved so far in respect of the fourth UMPP being set up in Tilaiya in Jharkhand, where the RfPs had already been issued, and the process of identifying the selected developer was expected to be completed by the end of 2008.

During the meeting, Minister (Energy) Tamil Nadu confirmed a site at Cheyyur, along with a captive port at Paramankeni for development of a UMPP in Tamil Nadu. He also made a strong request for a second UMPP at Cuddalore, for which site details would be sent shortly.

The Energy Minister of Maharashtra confirmed the availability of Munge site in the Sindhudurg District for setting up the UMPP, along with a nearby captive port. The Energy Secretary of Orissa confirmed availability of water for the already identified site at Bedabahal in Sundergarh District.

Though sites in Bijapur District were indicated in Karnataka, it was felt that further studies would be required before taking a decision for locating a UMPP in the suggested sites which are not coastal locations. Similarly, further studies would be required regarding water availability for the identified site in Chhattisgarh. This study is already in progress.

The meeting resulted in final decisions being taken for the sites for setting up one UMPP each in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Orissa. It was decided that immediate action would be taken by all concerned towards early implementation of these projects, so that the overall benefit of 12,000 MW from these three projects could be brought on stream at the earliest possible.