The Centre on Friday slammed the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government for its ‘delay-dallying’ tactics pertaining to the proposals of setting up power plants by central agencies in the state.
Union Coal Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal claimed although UP was facing acute power shortage and power theft, it was moving slow in allocating land and water for the proposed power plants.
“National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) had proposed a plant at Bargad (Bundelkhand), while two other plants were proposed at Bilhaur and Ghatampur in Kanpur,” he informed.
While, the state had allocated land for Ghatampur and Bilhaur power plants after a delay of one year, the proposed Bargad plant (Bundelkhand region) has now been moved to Madhya Pradesh due to the apathetic attitude of the Mayawati government, he told.
“If the land was allocated on time, half of the power plant would have been completed by now,” he said.
Jaiswal suggested if the state was serious in tackling its power shortage, it should have processed land and water proposals within a month.
The minister said the recent crisis of coal supply at some power plants in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra following the Telengana stir had been resolved and adequate coal supply had been ensured at these places.
“These states had requested us for diverting coal supply to them to overcome the crisis, which we acceded to and now the situation in normal,” he added.
Later Jaiswal told Business Standard that such situation would not arise in future, wherein any stir could paralyse coal linkage to a power plant.
