Row over project: Allegations against DyCM; firm, BJP reject

A row has erupted here over a solar power project, with a media report claiming that Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh had favoured a Chennai-based firm which rubbished the allegation, saying the plant was actually approved by the previous Omar Abdullah government.
BJP, to which Singh belongs, dubbed the media report as "malicious, motivated and aimed at tarnishing the image" of the Deputy Chief Minister and the party and threatened to take the matter to the Press Council of India besides seeking the possible legal remedy against the people who have "distorted the facts" regarding the matter.
In wake of the report, the opposition NC sought a probe while Congress demanded Singh's resignation. Hitting back at the two parties, BJP said they were indulging in "false propaganda" against Nirmal Singh and the party for the action which was taken during their own rule.

The row erupted after a Jammu-based newspaper alleged that Singh had tried to influence a senior bureaucrat to allot "without tenders" the Photo-voltaic Power Plant project at an estimated cost of Rs 700 crore on 300 acres of land at Chann Arrorian in Kathua district of Jammu region. Singh holds Power portfolio.
Adil Khan, who is one of the directors of the firm M/S Then India Energy Private Limited, told reporters here today that the Power Department had "no" role in the project and "it was the previous National Conference (NC)-Congress coalition government which had actually approved" it.
"The approval committee of the Science and Technology Department of that government approved the project on April 9, 2013 and then they (executing agency) followed the procedures," he said while reacting to the report.

Khan, who hails from Kashmir, said the firm was suffering due to the controversy. He said, "It is we who are suffering due to the fight between bureaucrats and politicians. Is it because I am a Kashmiri that I am being cornered?"

Strongly refuting the charges against Singh, state BJP chief spokesman Sunil Sethi said the project was not allotted by the present government but by the previous Abdullah government had awarded it to the said company in 2014.
"Rs 700 crore of 100 MW Solar Power Project for Chann Arrorian in Kathua district, Solar Power Plant to Then India Energy Pvt Ltd Chennai firm were approved when National Conference and Congress were running the government in Jammu and Kashmir in 2013," he told reporters in Jammu.

"It was awarded to the company when the Department of Power Development as well as Science & Technology were headed by the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and another by minister of NC," he said.
Khan said, "The Power Department has no role in the project except signing the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). I am neither affiliated with any political party nor am clarifying on behalf of the Deputy Chief Minister," he said.