Telangana CM KCR seeks coal for thermal power plants

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday urged Union Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal to allocate 29.7 tonnes of coal to the proposed 6,000-MW TS Genco plant and NTPC’s 4,000-MW thermal plant in the State. He also sought re-allocation of 3.5 tonnes of coal allotted to BPL, which opted out of power generation, to Telangana State.

Earlier, the Union minister called on the Chief Minister at his camp office here on Thursday and appreciated the State government’s solar power policy which seeks to produce 2,500 MW of power a year. Representations were submitted to the Union minister seeking allotment of coal and speeding up execution of power corridor linking the northern power grid with the southern grid.

A letter was also addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Union minister assured KCR of looking into these issues. The Chief Minister apprised Goyal of the pact signed by the Government of Telangana with Chhattisgarh to buy 1,000 MW from the neighbouring State and said another agreement was on the cards to purchase an additional 1,000 MW.

KCR urged the Union minister to take the initiative to complete the transmission lines to bring power from Chhattisgarh to Telangana. Goyal responded favourably to the request. The Chief Minister underscored the need for Wardha-Nizamabad-Hyderabad, Angul-Vemagiri-Khammam-Hyderabad and



Warora-Warangal 765 KW power lines.

Speaking to media persons later, Goyal said the power generation in the country had gone up by 8.4 per cent during the last one year. The coal production was also increased to record of 8.3 per cent. He said that during 2010 to 2014 period of UPA regime, the coal production was 31 million tonnes but during the last one year the coal production was 32 million tonnes.

The target for coal production till June 3 was 86.383 million tonnes and added that the actual production was 86.384 million tonnes. He said that in future the natural resources would not be given to privates for free but would be used for the people of the country.

On the projects in Telangana, the Union minister said that he had directed the officials to provide coal and gas linkage to 1600 MW capacity Ramagundam thermal power project within ten days. He asked the State government to provide land for the solar power project. “If the state government can provide land at the earliest, we will install transmission corridor for free,” said Goyal.

The Union minister said that there were no such discussions with the TS CM. Minister for Energy Jagadish Reddy, Nizamabad MP K Kavita, Chief Secretary Rajeev Sharma, TS Genco Chairman-cum-Managing Director Prabhakar Rao, Energy Secretary Aravind Kumar and others were present.