Bihar’s Barh Super Thermal Power Plant Fully Operational with 3rd Unit Synchronization

The third unit of stage-1 of the state's first super power thermal plant in Barh, Bihar, established on the initiative of Chief Minister Shri Nitish Kumar, was synchronized on Friday. It will be run at full capacity for 72 hours from 26.3.25. So that commercial production can be started from this new unit. In this way, three units of stage-1 and two units of stage-2 of Barh Super Power Thermal Plant will start producing electricity completely.

Each of the three units built in stage-1 of this thermal power plant has a capacity of 660 MW. While the capacity of two units of stage-2 is also 660 MW. In this way, the total power from the three units of stage-1 will be 1980 MW and 1320 MW power is being produced from the two units of the second stage. In this, Bihar will get 61 percent i.e. 1202 MW from the three units of stage-1 and 87 percent i.e. 1153 MW power from the two units of stage-2.

On this occasion, Hon'ble Energy Minister Mr. Bijendra Prasad Yadav said that the Barh Thermal Power Plant is an important achievement towards strengthening the energy security of Bihar. This has been possible due to the better leadership of Hon'ble Chief Minister Mr. Nitish Kumar and good governance in the state. The Energy Minister said that the successful implementation of this project will ensure uninterrupted and cheap power supply to the state, which will benefit industrial sectors, agriculture, trade and domestic consumers. The successful implementation of the Barh Thermal Power Project will play an important role in making Bihar self-reliant in the field of energy as well as taking the development of the state to new heights.

The foundation stone of Barh Thermal Power Station was laid when Mr. Nitish Kumar was a Union Minister

Its foundation stone was laid in 1999. At that time, the current Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was a minister in the Central Government. Earlier, there was a plan to build only three units of 660 MW in it. But later, its second phase was approved and two additional units of 660 MW were added. In this way, the plan to build three units in Stage-1 and two units in Stage-2 of this plant was materialized, which has now been completed.

Challenges arose in land acquisition

The state government helped NTPC a lot in acquiring land for this Barh thermal power plant. There were many disputes at the local level in land acquisition, but the state government took special initiative and resolved it and provided land to this power plant as per its requirement. The state government also took special initiative and resolved the law and order problem in this. Only then its dream could be realised.

Many challenges were faced in setting up Stage-1

The responsibility of building three units of Stage-1 of Barh Thermal Power Station was given to a Russian company. The work order to start the work was given to the company in 2005. After this, this Russian company had a dispute with NTPC. This dispute went on from 2005 to 2014 and the Barh Thermal Plant had to bear the brunt of it and its construction work got delayed. Then the responsibility of completing it was handed over to another company, which completed it in a phased manner. The construction of the first unit of Stage-1 was completed in November 2021, the second unit in August 2023 and the third unit in March 2025.

On the other hand, the work of construction of Stage-2 of this plant was handed over to Bhartiya Heavy Electrical Limited. It completed its work in 2016 itself and both the units started on time. They have started producing 660-660 MW of electricity.

It is worth mentioning that the Honorable Energy Minister of Bihar, Shri Bijendra Prasad Yadav ji played a special role in resolving all the challenges faced during the construction of this project and in coordinating with the State Government, Central Government and NTPC and giving his valuable guidance.