Water power magazine reports on a plan by a French company to build hydro electric projects on the Baitarani river. (This is the river where there is flooding now which has cut off the district HQ town of Jajpur from the rest of Orissa.) Following are excerpts from the magazine report.

French energy group Velcan was recently granted two 30-year concessions to develop projects with a combined capacity of 50MW in Orissa state.

Velcan Energy said it planned to develop a pair of 25MW projects on the same river for the ‘Baitarani’ project and although they would be built 5km apart they will be operated as a single scheme.

The company is proceeding with applications for the necessary authorisations and hopes to start construction in the second quarter of 2009 for commissioning and operations by the end of 2011.

The ‘Baitarani’ scheme will consist of two dams – Bhimkund and Tarini. It is planned that the hydro plants should be able to generate up to 200GWh per year, and secure 210,000 Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits per annum. …