The new power plant in Yelahanka and the people around it
“It is a candle,” said Keerthi the eight-year-old pointing at the cooling tower of the proposed LNG power plant in Yelahanka. “They say it is a gas plant, where they make electricity from gas,” said Renuka K mother of Keerthi. Their home at Kenchanahalli village of Yelahanka is a stone throw distance from the power plant that will produce 370 MW of electricity from Liquefied Natural Gas to meet the power demands of Bengaluru. The residents allege that the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited, KPTCL, the builder of the project has not even come once to them with the mandatory public hearing and they are clueless about the project. This is a plight that they share with the residents of more than a dozen apartment complexes that dot the boundary of the project area.
“Earlier we had to suffer the dark fumes that came out of the diesel plant and now I wake up to these large structures and god knows what the future holds for us,” says Radhika R, a resident of Heritage Estate. Her apartment stands at a mere hundred meters from the plant. The new plant is coming up at a 120-acre land that used to house a diesel power plant which was shut down after the pollution control board found high levels of harmful substances from its emission. Ironically the land was allotted in the early 80’s for a project to produce electricity from the city’s waste but it did not materialize forcing the authorities to turn to diesel and then later to furnace oil.
The residents allege that a power plant in such a densely populated area is disastrous since the government has considered outdated zone regulations that classify the area as industrial, ignoring more than 5000 families staying around the project area. “The zoning of this area as an industrial zone is a mistake, it did make sense 25 years ago but now there are over two dozen schools, colleges, hospitals and close to homes around. They just cannot ignore our lives” Radhika added.
Human settlement in Yelahanka started around the 12th century and was initially a major city for the cholas and then later for the Hoysala kingdom. And surprisingly, the city of Bengaluru came into existence from the sketches of Kempe Gowda kings who were feudal lords of Yelahanka.
And over the course of time, Yelahanka rose to prominence after the construction of the new international airport for Bengaluru and subsequently it was developed by the Karnataka Housing Board as a satellite city of Bengaluru. Thereafter Yelahanka area witnessed property booms which swell into areas around the factories. These areas were later notified individually as residential areas for the construction of apartment complexes and other settlements.
“The plant is in the industrial zone and we have obtained clearances from the Ministry of Environment, Airports authorities, Health and Family Welfare Departments and others for the project. Moreover, it is a combined cycle gas turbine power plant that uses LNG, the emissions will be the bare minimum and with a chimney that is 60 meters tall there will be hardly any issues” said an engineer, BHEL, the construction consultant of the project on condition of anonymity.
However, the documents from BHEL, about the project, available online speaks about the requirement of 14.4 MLD raw water during the initial phase for the functioning of the plant which they are planning to source from the Jakkur lake. The lake is replenished by a sewage treatment plant that has an output capacity of a mere 15 MLD that too after the ongoing upgradation. After the final expansion of the plant, this requirement will be close to 29 MLD of raw water. This is alarming as Jakkur lake is the only usable source of water. And with such large amounts of water being drawn from the lake, the ecosystem around this large lake will face issues and on a much larger scale, the neighboring Puttenahalli Lake, which is a Bird conservation reserve, will have to face a question of existence.
Amidst all these furors, the Rail Wheel Factory, located next to the proposed power plant is quietly installing a rooftop solar power plant that can generate two MW of electricity. “With the latest solar panel technology, it is possible to generate one MW of electricity from four acres of land at a cost of seven to eight crores,” says Aslam Khan, an engineer working with a solar power major in the city. The plant under construction, on the other hand, is being built at a cost of 1,568 crores and is dependent on the Liquefied Natural Gas supplied by the Gas Authority of India from Dabhol.
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