Punjab may draw power from Dadri

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh yesterday said his government would soon approach Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Energy, to buy power from his 3,000 MW power project, being installed at Gaziabad in Utter Pradesh.

Talking to media persons, after attending the prayer at Kalvlari Church on Easter, Singh said Ambani had agreed to supply 1,000 Mw to UP, and 500 Mw to Haryana and Punjab would request him to give 1,000 Mw out of this project to meet the ever-increasing demand of power in view of new mega projects coming in the state.

"The Punjab government was making efforts to augment the power supply and it had spent 24 per cent of last year's budget and now planned to spend 25 per cent of the annual budget of 2006-07 on power generation."

He pointed out the government would purchase electricity from Bhutan. "We have approached the Bhutan government for purchasing electricity and the deal will materialize within this year."

The chief minister further said he was to meet Ratan Tata, chairman, Tata Motors, and Anil Ambani in Mumbai next week to attract investments in the state.

Replying to another question about the proposed call of the Bhartiya Kisan Union to boycott the procurement of wheat by government agencies for not hiking the MSP, Singh said he supported their concern because he himself urged the Centre to enhance the MSP of wheat from Rs 650 to Rs 700 per quintal.

"The MSP was not keeping pace with the increase in prices of inputs, as these prices have shot up by 122 per cent, whereas the MSP has increased merely by 60 per cent and virtually the squeeze was on the framers."

Defending the action of the Centre on wheat import, Singh said that this was primarily done to maintain the level of the public distribution system (PDS), because the wheat production in the wheat growing states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and UP was likely to decline due to the erratic whether conditions.

He however said that the import of wheat would not affect the procurement of wheat within the state any way.