Electricity Minister Natham R.Viswanathan on Thursday charged the UPA government with meting out step-motherly treatment on TN’s demand for additional power and approvals for certain projects.
While replying to the debate on demands for grants for his department, he said, “The Centre is not paying heed to our demand for allocation of 1,000 MW of power. They have also reduced our Central allocation of coal and gas.”
The minister slammed the Centre for taking its own time on approving the Kundah Pumped storage hydel project, citing the Cauvery issue.
“The Centre is yet to approve the project citing the Cauvery River Authority. The fact is we are only going to draw water from Bhavani, a subsidiary of Cauvery River, that too from Tamil Nadu side. This shows the Centre’s step-motherly treatment towards TN,” he said.
He also alleged that the Centre had no intention of setting up transmission lines, which were required when the state purchased power from others states like Gujarat. “Setting up of transmission lines come in the Central purview,” he said.
Stating that the power cut scenario in the state was ‘temporary’, he said, “All efforts are being made to commission the state or joint venture projects such as Mettur Thermal Power Stage III, North Chennai
Thermal Power Project Stage II and TNEB-NTPC JV at Vallur at the earliest to tide over the present shortage.” It was expected to add 4887 MW to the state grid through state, central and joint sectors before 2013 end and this included the much-anticipated Kudankulam nuclear power project, he said.