North India's First Nuclear Plant to Come up in This Haryana District

New Delhi: North India's first nuclear plant will come up in Haryana's Gorakhpur, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Saturday (February 18, 2023). He said that this is keeping in line with the priority to increase India's nuclear capacity. Stating that a number of path-breaking decisions were taken in the last eight years, the Minister informed that the Department of Atomic Energy has also been given permission for forming joint ventures with PSUs for resources to open up atomic energy plants, which is an "upcoming and promising" sector and has potential to fulfill India's all energy needs in times to come.

He said that during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's regime, one of the major achievements would be the installation of Nuclear/Atomic Energy plants in other parts of the country, which were earlier confined mostly to the south Indian states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh or in the west in Maharashtra.

Singh added that a bulk approval of the installation of 10 nuclear reactors has been given a nod by the Modi Government.

In a statement, the Department of Atomic Energy said that the Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana's (GHAVP) having two units of 700 MWe capacity each of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) indigenous design is under implementation near Gorakhpur village in Fatehabad district in Haryana. 

To date, an amount of Rs 4,906 crore has been spent out of the total allocated funds of Rs 20,594 crore.

"Construction of other Main Plant buildings/structures viz. Fire Water Pump House (FWPH), Safety Related Pump House (SRPH), Fuel Oil storage area-1&2 (FOSA-1&2), Ventilation stack, overhead tank (OHT), Switchyard Control Building, Safety related & Non-safety related Tunnel & Trenches, Retaining walls and Garland Drain is progressing well," the statement read.

"Ground improvement in Turbine Building -1 & 2, 220 kV Switchyard and IDCT-1A is completed. Ground improvement in other areas IDCTs, 400kV Switchyard, Emergency makeup water pond and station roads are in progress. The contractors for the IDCT package and Turbine Island Package have mobilized the site," it added.