North India’s first nuclear plant to come up in Haryana

New Delhi: North India’s first nuclear plant is coming up at Gorakhpur in Haryana’s Fatehabad district, which is about 150 km north of the national capital.

Disclosing this on Saturday, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh, said that during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime, one of the major achievements would be the installation of nuclear or atomic energy plants in other parts of the country, which were earlier confined mostly to the southern states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh or in the west in Maharashtra.

The Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana’s (GHAVP) two units of 700 MW capacity each are under implementation near the Gorakhpur village. Till date, an amount of Rs 4,906 crore has been spent out of the total allocated funds of Rs 20,594 crore for the project.

Construction of the main plant buildings/structures viz. fire water pump house (FWPH), safety related pump house (SRPH), fuel oil storage area, ventilation stack, overhead tank, switchyard control building, retaining walls and garland drain is progressing well.

Ground improvement in Turbine Building 1 and 2, 220 kV Switchyard and IDCT-1A is completed. Ground improvement in other areas are in progress. The contractors for the IDCT package and turbine island package have mobilised the site.

Purchase orders for major long manufacturing cycle equipment and components like primary coolant pumps, calandria, reactor headers, refuelling machines heads, moderator and other D20 heat exchangers etc. are already in place.

Construction of water duct from Tohana to GHAVP for meeting operational cooling water requirements has been taken up through the Haryana Irrigation & Water Resources Department (HI&WRD) as deposit work and is progressing well.

Singh said that keeping in line with the priority to increase India’s nuclear capacity, a number of path breaking decisions were taken in last over eight years.

He added that a bulk approval of installation of 10 nuclear reactors has been given a nod by the government.

The minister said that the Department of Atomic Energy has also been given permission for forming joint ventures with PSUs for opening atomic energy plants, which is an upcoming and promising sector, having potential to fulfil India’s energy needs in times to come.