Power tussle: Nitish, Sushil Modi meet PM for more

Taking forward its effort to reduce power shortage in Bihar, an all-party delegation from the state, led by chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Sushil Modi, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to demand greater share of power and coal linkages for the state.

The 15-minute meeting, which had representatives of Janata Dal (United), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress, demanded coal linkages for the thermal power plant in Barauni.

“There is a 250-Mw thermal power plant in Barauni, which is two decades old and is being renovated. The Bihar government wants to set up another 250 Mw plant, and this is why we have come to meet the prime minister to demand coal linkages for it. The prime minister has assured us he will look into our demands,” said Sushil Modi.

The state, facing a perennial power shortage, suffered from a peak power deficit of 15 per cent between April 2011 and January 2012, as against the national average of 10 per cent. The state had a power demand of 2000 Mw during this period, against a supply of only 1700 Mw.

The delegation also recommended that Bihar’s share of power in the superthermal plants in Barh and Kahalgaon should be increased to 50 per cent from the existing 10 per cent. “All other states get 50 per cent share of power from the generation plants located in these states, but Bihar is the only state which gets only 10 per cent share. This happened because the previous state governments didn’t raise these issues with the central government and also didn’t push for greater share for the state. The prime minister has asked senior bureaucrats, who were present in the meeting, to look into the issues raised and find a solution,” Modi added.