The Udupi Power Corporation Limited (Formerly Nagarjuna Power Corporation Limited) project is an imported coal-based 1,200 Mw thermal power project in Udupi District of Coastal region of Karnataka [1]. The total cost of the project was Rs 5,800 crore. About 76 per cent of the project cost is debt borrowed from a consortium of bankers and financial institutions led by Power Finance Corporation (PFC). The 180 km long Transmission Line set up at a cost of Rs 560 crore was dedicated to the nation on September 12, 2012. Presently, both the units of the Project are in Operation and an average of 1,100 Mw of power is supplied to Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) grid at Hassan. The company is supplying power at Rs 3.15 per unit to the state as per the power purchase agreement signed between the company and the state government [2] People in the villages near the thermal plant suffered because of fly ash and the coal dust emit during the transportation of coal. Their agricultural and horticultural crops had been destroyed because of pollution [3]. On June 1, 2011, activists with the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) blocked the Mangalore-Mumbai Matsyagandha Express train in Nandikoor, Karnataka. The purpose of the protest was to show opposition to the transportation of coal by railway from the New Mangalore Port to the Udupi station. According to the activists, a condition for the environmental clearance granted to the plant was that coal would be transported through a closed conveyer system. Transportation in open railroad cars was producing damage to crops, agricultural land, drinking water, and public health [4]. |