Uttar Pradesh seeks 60 percent power from centre-owned plants

LUCKNOW - The Uttar Pradesh government Monday demanded at least 60 percent share in the power generated at plants owned by the central government located in the state.

The demand came soon after Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal claimed that the state government was creating hurdles for the central government’s plan to set up two major power projects in his own parliamentary constituency, Kanpur.

Accusing the central government of discriminatory approach towards the state, an official state government spokesman said here Monday: “While the Congress-ruled states like Andhra Pradesh and Haryana were entitled to cent per cent power generated at the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) installations in those states, Uttar Pradesh was given a raw deal as it was giving even less than 50 percent of the power generated there to this state.”

“Against a combined installed capacity of 8,500 MW, NTPC power plants in Uttar Pradesh were giving the state a total of only 4,100 MW,” he said.

The spokesman said that recently a delegation of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MPs had called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention in the matter. The delegation was stated to have told the prime minister that the state could happily allocate land for centre-owned power projects provided the central government gave an assurance of reserving at least 60 percent of the generation for the state.

A letter to that effect was also sent to the central power ministry Aug 2, and a response is still awaited, he said.

The spokesman expressed surprise at Jaiswal’s charge of “non-cooperation” by the state government.

“In fact, it was his coal ministry that was just sitting over our request for coal linkage for the proposed four new thermal power plants that were already under construction in different parts of the state,” he said.

“The coal minister had not cared to respond to a letter sent to him in this regard by Chief Minister Mayawati Aug 17,” he alleged.