NTPC Shaktinagar....Lighting up your Life
NTPC Shaktinagar is a township of NTPC Limited, for Singrauli Thermal power plant. It is situated in the state of Uttar Pradesh in Sonebhadra district. Shaktinagar township is situated at a diatance of 1 Km from Shaktinagar rly station, 25 Km from Singrauli station and 50 Km from Renukoot station. Singrauli is emerging as India's Energy capital. Once upon a time the place was covered with dense and un-navigable forests and inhabited by wild animals.
Dusk: New Year 2012
This blog is dedicated to the trainees of ET-2011 C&I and Mechanical batch at NTPC Shaktinagar. It will remind all of us of the moments spent at EDC during the course of the training. It was an emotional send-off after the completion of the training, but with a hope to meet in future. We will always cherish the time spent and the company of friends we had during our training.
Major Milestones of NTPC Shaktinagar
The image above depicts the view of the power plant during sunset from the helipad on a rainy day when the sky had a dappled veil of clouds. The setting sun had a yellowish-orange tinge and the slight mist in the surroundings presented a perfect picture.
Major Milestones of NTPC Shaktinagar
- Singrauli recorded the best ever calendar year Declare capacity of 97.26 %. in 2013 ( Previous best - 97.12 % in 2010.)
- Station second highest PLF in all NTPC coal stations with PLF of 94.46 % in 2013. (First TTPS with 94.70 % PLF.)
- NTPC’s flagship station “Singrauli’s all units crossed 2 Lakh running hrs .
- Unit 2 & 7 recorded ever best heat rate 2386.47 & 2387.27 Kcl/Kwh respectively in calendar year 2013.
The image above depicts the view of the power plant during sunset from the helipad on a rainy day when the sky had a dappled veil of clouds. The setting sun had a yellowish-orange tinge and the slight mist in the surroundings presented a perfect picture.
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| NTPC Singrauli : Generating 2000 MW |
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| Full Moon at Shaktinagar |
The township of NTPC is surrounded by coal mines and thermal power plants. Nearby Vindhyachal thermal power plant with 4260 MW, Rihand power plant with 2000 MW, Anpara power plant with 1630 MW, Obra power plant with 1322 MW, Hydro electric power station on Rihand Dam, and Jayant coal mines of Northern Coal Fields Limited are situated. The place has sufficient vegetation, and pollution is minimal. The township provides facilities like Officers club, Stadium, Indoor badminton court, Gym, Open air theater, Shopping complex, Chilka lake, Helipad, and Schools.
Carrying 34000 tonnes of coal everyday though MGR
Merry Go Round (MGR) is the scheme used to transport coal from the Jayant Mines to Coal Handling Plant of NTPC Singrauli. MGR of NTPC singrauli is of 43 Km length and has a signalling system similar to that followed by the Indian Railways.
Maintenance: Ensures that the Train, NTPC and India stays on Track of development
Signalling at MGR
The Maintenance and upkeep of the tracks of MGR is carried out by NTPC Limited. NTPC has a separate department looking after the Maintenance of the Railway Diesel Engines and the Wagons which carry coal from the Mines to the Power plant. The image above depicts a worker carrying out the Maintenance and repair of the Railway lines. The short distance from the coal mines to the power plant helps in reduced costs of fuel and ensures availability. Problems frequently arise during Monsoon, when the coal production reduces due to the flooding of coal mines and difficulty in handling wet coal.
The path to Success isn't always decorated with flowers
The fruits of success is very sweet but the path to it is not always a cake-walk. Even a seasoned campaigner needs to put in a lot of effort to make things happen and achieve the desired goal. A low angle shot taken along the railway tracks on a winter morning. Yellow flowers were scattered along the railway tracks and it was a sight to behold.
The criss-crossing of lines along the railway track. It reminds us of the various paths we tread in our life. Some are short and sweet, while others are bitter. We may choose the wrong one if we are inexperienced, but mistakes leads to gain in experience, and it teaches us to correct ourselves. One always learns through failures and mistakes in the life.
It was my second visit to the helipad. This time NTPC was celebrating New Year by organizing a picnic at the heli-pad. The employees and their family members were invited on the ocassion. It was a nice get-together and a memorable moment. We had a group photo there, some C&I guys are missing in this shot. Hope to catch them later.
New Year 2012
Some C&I guys on the day of the picnic at Hostel No 1 waiting for pick-up to the heli-pad. It was a Quite and chilly morning with bright sunshine. Although the mornings are cool and comfortable, the sun turns harsh in the after-noon.
Aim for the finesse of Messi
I played football with him at Shaktinagar finally after a long gap of 5 years. The last time i played football on a daily basis was at NIT Bhopal with my friends from West Bengal, Nepal and Bhutan. It was a memorable experience. Hope i will continue to play football at Vindhyanagar with new friends.
The Director
The director of our play Avatar Sahani helped us to express ourselves through the play and brought all of us together from different cultures on a common stage. It was indeed a privilege to work with him and it will be memorable one too.
The make-up and costumes for the play was simply good. It presented the characters in the retro look of the Mughals. It was the first time for all us when we were dressing up for a play in our lives, so it was truly exciting.
Donning different roles in Life
Trainees from Control and Instrumentation, acted on the play Taj Mahal ka Tender and Mechanical guys acted on the play Chainpur ki Dastan. It was a learning experience where we played the roles of a totally different character and expressed ourselves in front of the audience.
The low shutter speed and the lighting helped to create a blurring effect and the motion in the characters, in addition the white balance created a warm look.
Teamwork: Key to success
As a part of our training curriculum, we had Yoga classes early in the morning, it was quite fun. We had small games in the morning which was very entertaining and refreshing. The best part was that everyday we got to get up early in the morning and felt more refreshing. After the yoga classes we had speech therapy classes, where we were given a script and we had to read it with voice modulation. It was indeed difficult in the beginning but interesting. We were taught voice modulation, she had acted in a short role in the movie Oye Lucky Lucky Oye.
Winters are very cold here and occasionally fog is also visible. It rains sometimes during winters which leads to further temperature drop. The presence of suspended particles from the stack emissions leads to severe fog, but it does not cause severe problems to vehicular traffic. The Plant Load Factor is increases by 10-15% during winters as the efficiency of the condenser increases significantly. This increase in power generation is normally offset by the increased power consumption by Geysers and Heating appliances.
The temperature often reaches the dew point during the cold winter nights and this is visible as dew drops condensed on the flower petals and leaves in the mornings. The dew condensed on the grass is beneficial for morning walkers. The image above and below depicts the dew drops on a leaf and on flower petals.
The images above and below is a low angle shot taken in front of Hostel No 2 but with different focusing techniques. The image above is a Macro shot taken of the flowers scattered on the ground, while the hostel is blurred out as it is not in focus, while the image below is a wide angle shot with the hostel in focus and the sun rays are also captured creating an almost different perspective.
C&I trainees will be transferred to Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Project, Madhya Pradesh. Hope we will enjoy our stay at Vindhyanagar. The township there is very large and beautiful as compared to Shaktinagar. Sunset as viewed from the roof top of hostel no 1 at Shaktinagar. The skyline had clouds and the setting sun coluored the skyline in reddish orange tinge.
Rihand 2500 MW, Singrauli 2000 MW, Vindhyachal 4260 MW generates huge amount of power for the country. If the fuel supply is uninterrupted, it will continue to do so in future at a very high Plant Load Factor. The atmosphere around the plants have a lot of suspended matter, mainly coal dust. It settles everywhere in the environment.
Coal which falls along the railway tracks during transportation is collected by the villagers in the morning for their household consumption. It is a good source of livelihood for them.
The railway lines look straight to the naked eye, but when it is seen in the reflection of the sun, it appears quite different. They appear to be twisted, or something like neon lamps laid along the ground.
Rains through a fresh lease of life in the surroundings. The surroundings look clean and washed of the coal dust which settles on virtually everything. The water bodies gets filled up, and the vegetation sprouts. Rihand dam, a critical source of water for our power plant and township, is filled up due to the rains in the catchment areas.
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| Way to Open air Theater |
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| Greenery at MGR during Monsoons |
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| Jawahar Lal Nehru Staduim |
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Rihand, Vindhyachal and Singrauli: at the Helipad Helipad....  Shiv Mandir on the eve of Shiv Ratri  |
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| Shaktinagar bus Timings |
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| Kendriya Vidyalaya |
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| Fountain at Chilka |
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| Panoramic view of Chilka lake: Abode to a variety of species |
It is sometimes very difficult to capture these creatures, in natural surroundings. Your patience is tested very often, by the time you get to compose the image, adjust the shutter speed and exposure the bird flies away after detecting your presence in close proximity or sometimes moves out of the frame. Its a mixed bag, sometimes you get excellent shots, while at times you get standard shots with improper focusing or white balance.
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| Children playing at Park adjacent to Chilka Lake |
The Sunday market
Prior to joining NTPC i was staying at Hyderabad since the last four years. There in Hyderabad i stayed in flat and it seemed that i was encaged in the confines of tall buildings. Even if i went to the terrace, the sky was hazy and the stars were not visible clearly. Here in Shaktinagar, things are quite different, the atmosphere is quite clear, nights are calm and clear. The planets, stars and Moon is visible clearly. The moon rise can be observed clearly from my balcony. It is a sight to behold, the moon rising behind the hill, which is adjacent to our hostel. The mornings are decorated with the sweet calls of the birds and it seems as you are very close to nature. Sometimes when i sleep late the sunshine through the balcony and the chirping of birds wakes me up. I also learnt to photograph the moon here and this is one of the shots which i took from my balcony. Every time i shot the moon, the images were better and and i learnt with every shot.
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| Performing as a Team |
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| Safari at Bandhavgarh |
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| Bandhavgarh National Park |
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| Together we had a good time |
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| On the banks of Son river |
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| getting to know each other |
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| Blindfolded |
