Power Infra structure plays a vital role in the economic and social development of a country. Economic growth in India has spurred the need for more power and hence the infrastructure to transport the power. Adequate transmission capacity is very essential in any long-term planning for improving the availability and supply of power. So Transmission Expansion Planning is integral to the development of a stable and reliable power infrastructure. Planning for transmission lines in to the future is a very complex task which needs a coordinated and analytical analysis of various scenarios and contingencies. In this work we have implemented a scheme for Transmission Expansion Planning (TEP) which factors load growth and considers N-1 contingency. The optimization of the expansion plan is done with the help of Back Ward Search (BS), Forward Search (FS), Hybrid Search (HS) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFOA). The expansion plan is suggested for a 6 Bus-Roy Billinton Test System (RBTS). The plans suggested by different optimization algorithms are compared in terms of number of new lines, length of new lines and the total cost of expansion.