SONBHADRA ECONOMY

Economy

The southern region of Sonebhadra is referred to as the ” Energy Capital of India ” this region has many electrical power stations around Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar. NTPC (a leading power generation company in India) has three coal-based thermal power plants.

Singrauli Super Thermal Power Station, Shaktinagar 2000 MW (India’s first NTPC Power Plant)

Vindhyachal Thermal Power Station (largest capacity in India, 4760 MW)

3.Rihand Thermal Power Station, Renukut 3000 MW.

Other power stations are at Anpara (UPRVUNL), Obra (UPRVUNL), Renusagar (Hindalco) and Pipri-Hydro (UPRVUNL). NCL (a branch of Coal India Limited) has its headquarters and many coal mines in this region. Hindalco has a major aluminium plant at Renukut.

This region became an industrial heaven from an area of forest and hills. Some of the hills were having limestone and lot of them were having coal. There were some small rivers running through the area and the major was the Son.

Owing to the limestone hills, initially one cement factory was established at Churk in 1956. Later another cement factory started at Dala in 1971 name them Dalla cement factory this Cement plant is Biggest plant in Asia and ancillary unit of Dala got started at Chunar in 1980. The cement factories became the foundation on which other industries were built. A big dam constructed at Pipri in 1961 and named Rihand Dam. The dam produces 300 MW of electricity. Another small dam was constructed at Obra in 1968, 40 km from Rihand dam which generates 99 MW of electricity.

The Birla group then set up an aluminum plant at Renukut, which is one of the biggest aluminum plant of Hindalco. Later, the Birla group set up its own power plant at Renusagar in 1967. This plant has the current capacity of 887.2 MW and supplies the power to Hindalco. The Birlas also started a company in Renukut called HiTech Carbon. Another industrial group initiated a company in Renukut named Kanoria Chemicals, which produces chemicals and later it started own power plant at Renukoot in 1998 which generates 50 MW of electricity.

A big thermal power plant construction was started at Obra in 1967 with support of Russian engineers and was successfully completed in 1971. This had a capacity to produce 1550 MW of electricity.Another power plant was initiated at Anpara in 1980. It produces 1630 MW of electricity and has proposed to extend the capacity to 2630 MW. NTPC’s first thermal power plant that it started in Shaktinagar, generates 2000 MW. The plant at Bijpur generates 3000 MW.Dalla super 6 is new plant make by jaypee Group and bought a aditya birla group a plant produced in 8500 MTP in 2012

This region has three cement factories, one of the biggest aluminum plants, a carbon plant, a chemical factory and an energy hub of India, which generates 11000 MW with plans to reach 20000 MW. The whole country is benefiting from this region, which was once full of forests and hills, which seemed like infertile land.

In 2006 the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Sonbhadra one of the country’s 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640).[3] It is one of the 34 districts in Uttar Pradesh currently receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF).