Right-of-way constraints have set back the commissioning schedule of the 765kV Salem-Madhugiri transmission line by around three years. According to a recent government report, the line is expected to be commissioned by March 2018 as against its originally scheduled date of December 2015.
The 234-km single-circuit line is suffering from serious RoW constraints with respect to the 130-km portion passing through Karnataka. A large part of the line passes through forest area and as such, matters are stalled at the state
wild life board. The government report says that efforts are on to escalate the clearance issue to the National Wild Life Board and ultimately to the Supreme Court.
The Salem-Madhugiri line is an integral component of the transmission scheme planned for evacuation of power from various IPP plants in the Nagapattinam and Cuddalore regions of Tamil Nadu. The line terminates at Madhugiri in Tumkur district of Karnataka. The project was awarded on tariff-based competitive bidding route to Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd based on a winning quote of Rs.98.70 crore, being the levelised annual tariff.
Transmission licence was granted by CERC
The project is being implemented by Powergrid NM Transmission Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PGCIL. When the transmission licence was granted by CERC in June 2013, the commission stated that the project be completed within 30 months, which is by December 2015. However, the EPC contract was placed only in around May 2014; it was awarded to Gammon India and ICOMM-Tele Ltd.
The other component of the transmission line, which is the 765kV Nagapattinam-Salem doublecircuit line of around 212 ckm, was commissioned in October 2016. Coming back to the unfinished Salem-Madhugiri line, foundation work has been completed in 540 out of the total 575 locations. Nearly 500 towers have been erected, and stringing work has been completed only to the tune of 80 ckm out of a total of 234 ckm.
