KOLKATA: The company has submitted a proposal to the state government to build a 150-MW plant to supply power to the industrial zone in Haldia, power department officials said. "The idea is to make the Haldia industrial belt self-sufficient in power," an official told IANS. The government is considering a development plan to turn the port town, 115 km south of here, into a satellite township by 2025 in five phases. The town is envisaged to grow around a giant petrochemicals unit, its downstream sector and an export zone. The Haldia Development Authority (HDA), the government's project implementing agency for the town, is studying the Reliance proposal. It has also received another proposal from an Andhra Pradesh-based firm. The Haldia project would be part of Reliance's expansion plans that have set a target of generating 10,000 MW within the next 10 years. Besides the power plant, Reliance is mulling an IT link with Haldia -- a broadband, high-speed communications centre to track vehicles for shippers, transporters and consignees with global positioning system (GPS) technology. The Reliance centre is to come up within the Haldia Software Park, a 20-acre technology campus that will house other IT units as well. The Reliance unit could be given 4.45 acres of land. Before everything else, the company is expected to first begin work on its Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City project here. The technology campus is coming up on a 100-acre plot. The project, which envisages bringing different telecom, IT and information technology enabled services (ITES) companies within one hi-tech campus, could generate jobs for 20,000 professionals. The company is also building a branch of its Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communications Technology here. The main institute is located in Ahmedabad.
Source: IANS