A new railway bridge is expected to help NTPC reduce the transportation cost to its Kudgi super thermal power station in Karnataka.
According to estimates, the reduction in transportation cost for NTPC would be Rs.200-500 per tonne. This will also bring down the cost of electricity generation. Thanks to the new bridge, the transit time is also expected to reduce by 8-15 hours.
This newly-constructed 670m long bridge in South Western Railway’s jurisdiction will also help Indian Railways to handle more material with the available infrastructure. Besides, with the availability of double lines, travel time from Sholapur in Maharashtra to Gadag in Karnataka will be reduced, saving time for the passengers, a release from NTPC said.
NTPC, in the release, also said that it has provided assistance on doubling of the lines on the existing tracks from Hotgi, Maharashtra to Kudgi, Karnataka (134 km) and provided support in the construction of two bridges on the river Bhima.
Currently, a bridge of more than 50-years restricts haulage of heavy loaded goods, whereby most of the traffic is being diverted through the Guntakal to Bellary-Gadag route.
NTPC is awaiting final approval from the South Western Railway and will start the operations as soon as it gets clearance.
NTPC’s Kudgi coal-fired supercritical power plant, located in Bijapur district of Karnataka, currently has three units of 800-mw, each, representing Stage-1 of the project. These three units were commissioned progressively during the period from December 2016 to March 2018. In Stage-2 of the Kudgi project, two more 800-mw units are envisaged for addition.
When the Unit-1 at Kudgi was commissioned, which was on December 26, 2016, it was the first 800-mw power unit of NTPC to do so.
Key equipment suppliers to Kudgi Stage-1 were Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction that supplied boilers (steam generators) through its Indian arm Doosan Chennai Works, and Toshiba-JSW that supplied the turbine-generators.
As of June 30, 2020, the installed capacity of NTPC Group (NTPC and its subsidiaries/joint ventures) stood at 62,110 mw. This was 12.7 per cent higher than the comparable level of 55,126 mw on June 30, 2019. It may be mentioned that during this period, NTPC commissioned, among others, two 800-mw units—one at Lara (Chhattisgarh) and the other at Darlipalli (Odisha).
