Chennai, March 26: The thousand-megawatt power project was conceived in the early nineties. Today, it is in danger of being nipped in the womb.

Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK could end up aborting the Jayamkondam lignite-mining-cum-power-generation project if the standoff over acquiring land for the thermal plant persists. Reason: it doesn’t want a Nandigram-like situation to develop in the state.

There’s one difference, though. While it is the Opposition which is resisting the Left Front’s move to acquire land for industry in Bengal, the DMK has run into vocal protests from an ally, the PMK.

The Jayamkondam project, whose cost has escalated to Rs 5,000 crore, is yet to take concrete shape despite recent efforts to revive it as a joint venture by the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.

The project in Perambalur district, close to the heartland of the backward class Vanniyars, was conceived after Jayalalithaa first came to power in 1991. The original plan was it would be executed by an Indo-German consortium led by the Calcutta-based Willia-mson Magor and completed in three phases.

In the first phase, three million tonnes of lignite were to be mined every year to feed a 500-MW plant. But the project was downsized after financiers developed cold feet over the huge mining costs. Then it almost collapsed when a key promoter pulled out.

The DMK, which wrested power in 1996, sought to revive the project and, through an international bidding process, selected Reliance as the promoter. But Reliance Power also quit.

After Jayalalithaa again came to power in 2001, the government decided on a joint execution by the NLC and the state electricity board.

But the impasse over land and compensation for farmers persisted. Now, the main hurdle before the project is the Vanniyar-based PMK’s insistence that even if it is entrusted to the public sector NLC, farmers’ interests should not be betrayed as had allegedly been the case when the NLC was built.

PMK legislator Velmurugan today told the Assembly the NLC hadn’t fulfilled its promise of jobs to local residents who had given away their land for the Neyveli project and warned that there shouldn’t be a repeat of the “fiasco” with the Jayamkondam plant. He said farmers have to be paid at least Rs 5 lakh per acre and demanded jobs for at least one person from every family which has given up land.