A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed at a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday against the installation of high-tension electricity lines by an Adani Group-owned power plant in the Indian state of West Bengal, reports IANS.
The high-tension electricity lines were being set up at Farakka in Murshidabad district by the power plant as part of a project stretching from Jharkhand's Godda district to Bangladesh, as mandated by a bilateral trade agreement.
This comes as Bangladesh in early January said it hoped to get a supply of 750MW of electricity from Adani Godda Power Plant from mid-March.
However, the government has sought a revision to the power purchase agreement (PPA) it signed with Adani Power Ltd.
It seems the price of coal to be purchased as fuel for the project has emerged as the prime bone of contention.
A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhradwaj of the Indian court admitted the petition filed by the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and 30 fruit farmers in the Farakka region. The matter will come up for a hearing on February 7.
The petitioners have stated in the PIL that since the majority of the people in the area through which the high-tension electricity lines will pass are dependent on mango and lychee farming, the overhead lines will impact their livelihood.
They have claimed that these overhead high-tension electricity lines are passing over the mango and lychee gardens and hence their location should be replaced to alternative areas.
They have also claimed that previously too, they had protested against this development but were beaten up by the police.
The legal development coincides with the dramatic fall of Gautam Adani, the founder of the Indian conglomerate, on the list of the world's richest persons following a US short-seller report.
Shares in the Adani Group plunged again on Wednesday, leaving Gautam slip to 15th on Forbes rich list with an estimated net worth of $75.1 billion. In the process, the billionaire also lost his title as Asia's richest person.
Mentionable, a 106-km dedicated transmission line from Godda to Chapainawabganj's Rohanpur being constructed by the Adani group was connected to the national grid of Bangladesh with two substations in Rohanpur and Bogura.
As per Power Division documents seen by UNB, Bangladesh would be paying Adani Power an estimated $23.87 billion, equivalent to almost Tk 2.4 trillion (considering US dollar exchange rate at Tk 100), over the 25-year life cycle of the plant, if the PPA remains unchanged.
Adani Power's investment in the plant, including transmission lines till the Bangladesh border, has been estimated at around $2.1 billion.
The PPA was signed between Bangladesh Power Development Board and Adani Power (Jharkhand) Limited to import 1496 MW (Net) from Coal Fired Power Generation Facility at Godda on November 5, 2017.
